The tale of the body thief - By Anne Rice Page 0,159

David looked to heaven as if to say silently that his persecution would never end!—the proprietor demonstrated that the creaky overhead fan created quite a breeze. Old white louvered shutters covered the windows. The furniture was made of white wicker, and the floor was old tile.

It seemed very charming to me, but mostly on account of the sweet warmth of the air around me, and the bit of jungle creeping down around the structure, with its inevitable snaggle of banana leaf and Queen’s Wreath vine. Ah, that vine. A nice rule of thumb might be: Don’t ever live in a part of the world which will not support that vine.

At once we set about to changing clothes. I stripped off the tweeds, and put on the thin cotton pants and shirt I’d bought in New Orleans before we left, along with a pair of white tennis shoes, and deciding against an all-out physical assault upon David, who was changing with his back turned to me, I went out under the graceful arching coconut palms, and made my way down onto the sand.

The night was as tranquil and gentle as any night I’ve ever known. All my love of the Caribbean came back to me—along with painful and blessed memories. But I longed to see this night with my old eyes. I longed to see past the thickening darkness, and the shadows that shrouded the embracing hills. I longed to turn on my preternatural hearing and catch the soft songs of the jungles, to wander with vampiric speed up the mountains of the interior to find the secret little valleys and waterfalls as only the Vampire Lestat could have done.

I felt a terrible, terrible sadness for all my discoveries. And perhaps it hit me in its fullness for the first time—that all of my dreams of mortal life had been a lie. It wasn’t that life wasn’t magical; it wasn’t that creation was not a miracle; it wasn’t that the world was not fundamentally good. It was that I had taken my dark power so for granted that I did not realize the vantage point it had given me. I had failed to assess my gifts. And I wanted them back.

Yes, I had failed, hadn’t I? Mortal life should have been enough!

I looked up at the heartless little stars, such mean guardians, and I prayed to the dark gods who don’t exist to understand.

I thought of Gretchen. Had she already reached her rain forests, and all the sick ones waiting for the consolations of her touch? I wished I knew where she was.

Perhaps she was already at work in a jungle dispensary, with gleaming vials of medicine, or trekking to nearby villages, with miracles in a pack on her back. I thought of her quiet happiness when she’d described the mission. The warmth of those embraces came back to me, the drowsy sweetness of it, and the comfort of that small room. I saw the snow falling once more beyond the windows. I saw her large hazel eyes fixed on me, and heard the slow rhythm of her speech.

Then again I saw the deep blue evening sky above me; I felt the breeze that was moving over me as smoothly as if it were water; and I thought of David, David who was here with me now.

I was weeping when David touched my arm.

For a moment, I couldn’t make out the features of his face. The beach was dark, and the sound of the surf so enormous that nothing in me seemed to function as it ought to do. Then I realized that of course it was David standing there looking at me, David in a crisp white cotton shirt and wash pants and sandals, managing somehow to look elegant even in this attire—David asking me gently to please come back to the room.

“Jake’s here,” he said, “our man from Mexico City. I think you should come inside.”

The ceiling fan was going noisily and cool air moved through the shutters as we came into the shabby little room. A faint clacking noise came from the coconut palms, a sound I rather liked, rising and falling with the breeze.

Jake was seated on one of the narrow saggy little beds—a tall lanky individual in khaki shorts and a white polo shirt, puffing on an odoriferous little brown cigar. All of his skin was darkly tanned, and he had a shapeless thatch of graying blond hair. His posture was one of complete relaxation, but