Of Love and Evil - By Anne Rice Page 0,46

the door. And then stared at me with muted outrage.

“Why have you come here now?” he demanded. “I thought you’d fled for your life.”

“I’ve seen the ghost who haunts the other house,” I said. “I’ve seen him plainly and surely you know who he is.”

I came into the room, and offered my hands to help him to his feet. This he accepted, as it was very difficult for him at his age, and then he backed up and, turning, found his way to one of his many enormous heavily carved chairs. He sank down on the cushions and, rubbing his nose for a moment as though he was in pain, he looked up at me.

“I don’t believe in ghosts!” he said. “Dybbuks, yes, demons, yes, but ghosts, no.”

“Well, think again on it. This ghost is a small elderly man. He wears a black velvet tunic, long, like that of a scholar, but he has blue tassels sewn on the edges of his mantle. He wears the yellow ‘badge of shame’ on his tunic, and peers at the world through spectacles.” I made the gesture to describe them with my fingers before my eyes. “He has a bald head and long gray hair and beard.”

He was speechless.

“Is this the Hebrew scholar who lived in this house twenty years ago?” I asked. “Do you know this man’s name?”

He didn’t answer but he was mightily impressed by what I’d described. He stared off, stunned and seemingly miserable.

“For the sake of Heaven, man, tell me if you know who this man is,” I said. “Vitale is locked up under your roof. He’ll be tried by the Inquisition for having a—.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve been trying to stop all this,” he cried, raising his hand. He drew in his breath and, after a moment of silence, he seemed to surrender himself, with a long sigh, to what had to be done. “Yes, I know who this ghost is.”

“Do you know why he haunts? Do you know what he wants?”

He shook his head. Clearly all this was excruciating for him.

“The cellar, what has it to do with the cellar? He led me to the cellar. He pointed to the stone floor.”

He let out a long agonizing groan. He put his hands to his face, then stared forward over his own fingers.

“You really saw this?” he whispered.

“Yes. I saw this. He rages, he bellows, he cries in pain. And he points to the floor.”

“Oh, no, don’t say any more,” he pleaded. “Why was I fool enough to think it could not be?” He turned away from me, as if he couldn’t bear my scrutiny, or anyone’s for that matter, and he bowed his head.

“Can you not tell everyone what you know?” I asked. “Can you not testify that this thing has nothing to do with Vitale, or poor Lodovico, or Niccolò? Signore Antonio, you must tell what you know.”

“Pull the bell rope,” he said.

I did as he asked.

When his servant appeared, another ancient relic of a human being, he told the old man that at dawn he was to gather the entire household to the nearby house where the ghost raged. This gathering must include Fr. Piero, Niccolò and Vitale and that all were to be assembled around the table in the dining hall, which should be dusted and provided with lamps and chairs. Bread, fruit, wine, all should be furnished, as he had a story to tell.

I took my leave of him.

Pico, who’d been hovering in the passage, took me to Vitale’s door. When I called Vitale’s name he answered, in a low dispirited voice. I told him not to be afraid. I had seen the ghost and its mystery would soon be explained.

Then I allowed myself to be led to a small bedchamber with painted walls, and curious as I was as to everything about it, I sank down on the coffered bed and went fast asleep.

I awoke with first morning light. I’d been dreaming of Ankanoc. We’d been sitting together, talking in some comfortable place, and he had said, with all his seeming charm, “Didn’t I tell you? There are millions of souls lost in systems of pain and grief and meaningless attachment. There is no justice, no mercy, no God. There is no witness to what we suffer, except our own.” Spirits using you, feeding off your emotions, no god, no devil …

Quietly in the small bedchamber, I answered him, or I answered myself. “There is mercy,” I whispered. “And there is justice, and