The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (7 page)

By the seventh day of Mr. Cavalanti’s fast the entire hospital was in an uproar. By some stretch of the imagination he might have remained unharmed by his abstinence from food, but everything medical science taught us said he could not have survived that long without water. Disregarding normal body functions, even the amount of water lost through the lungs in every exhalation of his breath should have left him dangerously dehydrated. Such a loss should have resulted in an abnormal thickening of the blood—what little of it Mr. Cavalanti had—and cyanosis, a bluish coloration of the skin caused by lack of oxygen in the blood, should have set in. Nonetheless, Mr. Cavalanti did not suffer from cyanosis. He remained as anemically pale and animated as ever.

I begged him to take some sustenance, or to allow me to have him fed intravenously, but he adamantly refused. With this I was left with the choice of either putting him under sedation, or allowing his deadly fast to continue. It was a decision I found impossible to make. To put him under sedation I would have to use force, and I could not extricate myself from the fear that perhaps this was the wrong thing to do. After all, his metabolism obviously was very different, and he already had survived an impossible seven days. If I did give him an injection, would I be saving a strange young man from his own madness, or if he was something unearthly, a being with a more sublime body structure, would our coarse and material medications rip through his veins like molten lead? I found myself trapped in an insurmountable state of indecision, a state that my colleagues neither understood nor approved of. There was talk that I was flagrantly ignoring my responsibilities as a physician in catering to Mr Cavalanti’s “condition,” and I became more and more uneasy about the possible consequences of this disapprobation.

On the morning of the eighth day when I entered Redgewood I discovered a name on the assignment sheet that filled me with panic: Hardwicke. Dr. Cletus Hardwicke had nobly assigned himself to this case. The audacity! I was outraged. Fate had assigned us to the same institution, but we avoided each other like old tigers. After all these years why should he suddenly want to confront me? I rushed to the second floor. As I neared Mr. Cavalanti’s room I noticed that the door next to it was open. Inside was a figure draped in a sheet. The heavyset man had died.

Outside of Mr. Cavalanti’s room itself a small group of nurses and internes had gathered. As I struggled to push through them I became aware of the sickening odor of paraldehyde. My alarm increased. Before I had a chance to reach the door I rushed headlong into the bloody little man. It was the first time in many years I had had occasion to scrutinize him so directly Age crept in his ugly features; his thinning, reddish hair was streaked with gray, brown spots dotted the bulbous forehead. Bluish veins embroidered his fingers. His brow was bushier, and his eyes, even more piercing.

“Why?” I demanded as I took his arm and pulled him away from the door.

At first he was frightened, but when his gaze met mine he calmed. He knew me all too well. He knew I was not capable of violence of any form. As we stared at each other that same familiar and inscrutable amusement drifted into his expression.

“Gladstone,” he said placidly, almost amiably.

“Why have you seen my patient?”

“I thought it best.”

“I smell paraldehyde.”

“We tried to put your Mr. Cavalanti under sedation.”

“Tried?”

“It’s the damnedest thing, Gladstone,” he said shaking his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

I watched his face closely. What was he up to? What was he orchestrating now?

“After three internes and a nurse struggled to hold that young man down I administered enough paraldehyde to knock out a man twice his size—”

“And?”

“And he got awfully sick, but after he finished coughing and retching he just sat there and looked at us, cursing in Italian and saying we were fools.” He shook his head.

“Why were you giving my patient paraldehyde without my permission?”

He regarded me with surprise. “Your patient? Dr. Gladstone, all I know is that there’s a young man in there who hasn’t eaten in eight days, and if you weren’t considering intravenous feeding, somebody had to.” He looked at me incredulously. “But come now, John. That’s not the point I gave that young man enough paraldehyde to knock out a man twice his size. Do you hear me? Twice his size!” Something fanatical glimmered in the eyes of the little man before me, something that for the slightest mote of a second seemed to overwhelm even him. He ruffled his feathers as if once again regaining control. The internes nearby shifted nervously.

Dr. Hardwicke glanced at them and then back at me. I could see in his expression that he was not dismissing what he had just witnessed, a medical enigma of no small import. He was much too clever to allow a flare of human irrationality to jeopardize a situation pregnant with as yet unknown possibilities. He looked again at the internes watching and judging our every word. His smile returned. “... but come now, Dr. Gladstone, you seriously wouldn’t allow a patient to continue to refuse intravenous feeding without prescribing paraldehyde yourself, would you?”

“Well...” I stammered nervously. Of course I objected, but the last thing I wanted Cletus to know—anyone to know—was the fantastical belief I had allowed to take root in my mind. It was impossible, but for some unknown reason something within me asserted with increasing conviction that there was a linkage between the angel of my childhood and the helpless creature in the room beyond. It was not out of any fear over my own future and reputation that I wanted this absurd and desperate notion concealed. It was concern for him, the boy Hardwicke looked at me searchingly. “Something strange is going on, isn’t it?” His voice was self-assured, but I could tell he was merely fishing. “How much do you know about this Mr. Cavalanti, anyway?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, people just don’t exist without food.”

“Obviously not, Dr. Hardwicke. He must be secretively obtaining food and water—his secrecy due to his psychological condition. I have not previously prescribed paraldehyde because I never seriously entertained the notion that Mr. Cavalanti had survived eight days on absolutely nothing.” I looked at the internes and the nurses. My vision returned to the little man. “In the future I will thank you to follow respected and ethical medical procedure and consult me before you administer any treatment to one of my patients.”

With that I finished. Several of the internes began to nod slowly, appeased for the moment by my explanation, but Cletus simply glared. He had no retort, but he had read the meaning in my pause. He knew I was hiding something. I could feel his eyes burning into the back of my head as I turned the doorknob in its brass collar and entered the room. As usual the blinds were drawn and several bedsheets stretched tightly over each window kept all but a faint hint of sunlight from entering. According to Mr. Cavalanti’s directions the room was illuminated by two or three dozen candles arranged over the tables and ledges. It gave the room an almost ecclesiastical glow and in the midst of the flickering golden light rested the boy. Nature could not have chosen a creature more diametrically opposed to the man I had just left. The boy’s gentle face was flushed and beaded with perspiration. His hair was disheveled. An acrid trace of paraldehyde still lingered in the air.

He gave a terrified start as I entered and then sank back heavily against his pillow. “Oh, it’s you,” he gasped weakly. “I’d thought you’d forgotten about me.”

“I would never do that,” I said quickly. “I’m so terribly sorry about what happened.”

“I told you! I knew I shouldn’t have stayed here.” He turned toward me desperately; his eyes flashed. “Do you know how awful it was, me being helpless while those men held me down, and that little gremlin came at me with his furious eyes?”

For a moment I imagined this fragile boy thrashing wildly as the internes surrounded him, the candle flames flickering in the commotion. I could see Dr. Hardwicke hobbling about, leering with the satisfaction that he was only doing his duty as he plunged the hypodermic down and the angel emitted a pained and agonizing cry.

“What will the paraldehyde do to you?” I asked inquisitively.

“What does it do to you?”

“It would make me go into a very deep sleep.”

“It has made me sick, but I will not sleep.”

I nodded as I approached the bed and began to undo his bandages. He drew back at first, but then he huffed and relented. As I removed the gauze I discovered with a mixture of awe and expectation that the flesh had already bonded together. Miraculously, the discoloration had already started to fade, and only a faint pink line remained where I had made the incisions. “And the bones?” I asked.

“They have already set,” he replied. “It will be a day or two before they’re healed completely, but I could walk on them if it meant my life.” He fumbled for the gold pillbox and popped one of the shiny black pills into his mouth.

“You won’t be very safe here after this incident,” I conceded. “As soon as my colleagues ponder the implications of your surviving their massive dose of paraldehyde, they’ll be hack. A few of the more noble ones might bring needles and scalpels, but most of them—” I stopped abruptly as I heard the floorboards creak outside the door. I imagined Dr. Hardwicke just happening to drop a cigarette near the keyhole and stooping to pick it up. My young friend glared intently at the open transom.

“Most of them will be medieval,” he said in a hushed and distraught voice. “You don’t know how they’ll be, but I’ve had to deal with this sort of thing before. Anything that people don’t understand, they fear; and anything people fear, they hate. You’ll see a side of—” He was becoming so anxious and frightened I had to gesture for him to be quiet.

He lowered his eyes as I walked over to the night table. “I’m a transgression,” he continued as he shook his head slowly and drifted off into silence.

While he was distracted in his thoughts I carefully slipped one of the black pills out of the little gold pillbox and placed it in my pocket.

“Niccolo,” I said abruptly. He looked up at me, his eyes wide and curious when he realized I had called him by his first name. “Are you sure your legs are healed enough that you could walk a little?”

He nodded slowly.

“Well, then, when I come back on my evening rounds,’” I whispered quietly, “I’ll bring you one of the interne’s uniforms. At ten o’clock sharp the nurses change shift and for a few moments no one will be paying much attention to your door. If you slip out then I’m sure you could make it to the back receiving door undetected.”

He gazed at me unbelievingly as I sketched him a map of the hospital.

“I’ll have a carriage waiting for you there,” I ended. “Do you think your legs are strong enough for you to make it that far?”

He nodded yes.

I shook my head with amazement. “Even if you do arouse a little suspicion, no one would dare consider that the unusual young patient in room 214 could be walking on his own accord for many months to come.” I glanced once again at his legs.

“
Dottore
,” he said incredulously, “why should you alone be so different? Why are you doing this for me?”

“Let’s just say I’m trying to make some amends,” I returned as I stood to leave. I reached for his hand and he drew back reluctantly, as if for some inexplicable reason he did not want me to shake it. His eyes met mine as I clenched his hand reassuringly. The poor dear boy was so flushed with worry his hand was actually cool to the touch.

That afternoon I went to a chemist’s I frequented on Piccadilly, and waited for the tall, thin wren of a fellow to come from the back room. The shop itself was dark and brooding with walls cluttered to the ceiling with boxes, bottles, and apothecary jars filled with every imaginable pill and tonic. A row of stuffed birds lined the perimeter of the ceiling, and two immense mirrors in Chinese frames behind the counter gave it an illusion of space.

“Good day to ya, Dr. Gladstone,” the shopkeeper greeted when he appeared. “Peevish weather we’re havin’.”

“Peevish, indeed, Mr. Sedgemoor. I wonder if you might oblige me in a rather unusual request.”

I laid the shiny black pill on the counter. “One of my patients is taking this medication, and refuses to tell me what they are. I was wondering if you could try to track it down for me?”

“There won’t be any problem in that, Dr. Gladstone,” he replied. “Of course, if it’s a home remedy and not in any formularies, it might take a couple of weeks to test it.”

“Whatever,” I returned. “Just get in touch with me as soon as possible.”

He smiled and slipped the pill into a small brown envelope as I turned and left the shop.

The evening was warm and muggy and midge swarms hovered in haloes around the gas lamps. I drove the brougham myself so that it would not be necessary to fabricate any explanations for my driver. I did not want anything surrounding Niccolo’s escape to lead to me. I know I sighed with relief when I saw the white-coated figure walk carefully down the steps, and I caught a glimpse of the shining face in the lamplight. The ride to Bond Street was uneventful.

When we finally reached the house I led Niccolo directly to the study, and he sank heavily into one of the two padded and buttoned black leather armchairs in front of the fireplace. Even though he remained silent I could tell he was carefully scanning the details of the room. The walls were of black paneling, and a deep scarlet Axminster carpet covered the floor. Huge aspidistras towered everywhere, and dark walnut bookcases shimmered in the light of the fire. A gilt pendulum clock upon the chimneypiece ticked loudly under a glass dome supported by a red, plush-covered plinth, flanked by two other domes containing carefully mounted African grasshoppers. In the corner by the door sat my desk cluttered with papers and inks, and between the chairs by the fireplace was a huge mahogany table containing an epergne, a pair of wine coolers, candelabra, and innumerable salvers, mugs, coasters, goblets, and other silver articles covered with
repoussé
work.