he was remembering, seeing images I couldn’t see. He was troubled, faintly sad. “I wrote it all down,” he said finally. “It’s in the files at the Motherhouse. Many, many have read the story over the years.”

“Never tempted to publish it?”

“Can’t do it. It’s part of being in the Talamasca. We never publish outside.”

“You’re afraid you’ve wasted your life, aren’t you?”

“No. I’m not, really … Though what I said earlier is true. I haven’t cracked the secrets of the universe. I’ve never even passed the point I reached in Brazil. Oh, there were shocking revelations afterwards. I remember the first night I read the files on the vampires, how incredulous I was, and then those strange moments when I went down into the vaults and picked through the evidence. But in the end it was like Candomble. I only penetrated so far.”

“Believe me, I know. David, the world is meant to remain a mystery. If there is any explanation, we are not meant to hit upon it, of that much I’m sure.”

“I think you’re right,” he said sadly.

“And I think you’re more afraid of death than you will admit. You’ve taken a stubborn tack with me, a moral one, and I don’t blame you. Maybe you’re old enough and wise enough to really know you don’t want to be one of us. But don’t go talking about death as if it’s going to give you answers. I suspect death is awful. You just stop and there’s no more life, and no more chance to know anything at all.”

“No. I can’t agree with you there, Lestat,” he said. “I simply can’t.” He was gazing at the tiger again, and then he said, “Somebody formed the fearful symmetry, Lestat. Somebody had to. The tiger and the lamb … it couldn’t have happened all by itself.”

I shook my head. “More intelligence went into the creation of that old poem, David, than ever went into the creation of the world. You sound like an Episcopalian. But I know what you’re saying. I’ve thought it from time to time myself. Stupidly simple. There has to be something to all this. There has to be! So many missing pieces. The more you consider it, the more atheists begin to sound like religious fanatics. But I think it’s a delusion. It is all process and nothing more.”

“Missing pieces, Lestat. Of course! Imagine for a moment that I made a robot, a perfect replica of myself. Imagine I gave him all the encyclopedias of information that I could—you know, programmed it into his computer brain. Well, it would only be a matter of time before he’d come to me, and say, ‘David, where’s the rest of it? The explanation! How did it all start? Why did you leave out the explanation for why there was ever a big bang in the first place, or what precisely happened when the minerals and other inert compounds suddenly evolved into organic cells? What about the great gap in the fossil record?’ ”

I laughed delightedly.

“And I’d have to break it to the poor chap,” he said, “that there was no explanation. That I didn’t have the missing pieces.”

“David, nobody has the missing pieces. Nobody ever will.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“That’s your hope, then? That’s why you’re reading the Bible? You couldn’t crack the occult secrets of the universe, and now you’ve gone back to God?”

“God is the occult secret of the universe,” David said, thoughtfully, almost as if brooding upon it, face very relaxed and almost young. He was staring at the glass in his hand, maybe liking the way the light collected in the crystal. I didn’t know. I had to wait for him to speak.

“I think the answer might be in Genesis,” he said finally, “I really do.”

“David, you amaze me. Talk about missing pieces. Genesis is a bunch of fragments.”

“Yes, but telling fragments remain to us, Lestat. God created man in his own image and likeness. I suspect that that is the key. Nobody knows what it really means, you know. The Hebrews didn’t think God was a man.”

“And how can it be the key?”

“God is a creative force, Lestat. And so are we. He told Adam, ‘Increase and multiply.’ That’s what the first organic cells did, Lestat, increased and multiplied. Not merely changed shape but replicated themselves. God is a creative force. He made the whole universe out of himself through cell division. That’s why the devils are so full of envy—the bad angels, I mean. They are not