David had left many messages with my man in Paris. He would be leaving soon for the carnival in Rio. He missed me. He wished I would come join him there.
All had gone well with the settlement of his estate. He was David Talbot, a young cousin of the older man who had died in Miami, and the new owner of the ancestral home. The Talamasca had accomplished these things for him, restoring to him the fortune he had left to them, and settling upon him a generous pension. He was no longer their Superior General, though he maintained his quarters in the Motherhouse. He would be forever under their wing.
He had a small gift for me, if I wanted it. It was the locket with the miniature of Claudia. He'd found it. Exquisite portrait; fine gold chain. He had it with him, and would send it to me if I liked. Or would I not come to see him, and accept it from his hands myself?
Barbados. He had felt compelled to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak. The weather was beautiful. He was reading Faust again, he wrote to me. He had so many questions he wanted to ask me. When would I come?
He had not seen God or the Devil again, though he had, before leaving Europe, spent a long time in various Paris cafes. He wasn't going to spend this lifetime searching for God or the Devil either. "Only you can know the man I am now," he wrote. "I miss you, I want to talk to you. Can you not remember that I helped you, and forgive me everything else?"
It was that seaside resort he'd described to me, of handsome pink stucco buildings, and great sprawling bungalow roofs, and soft fragrant gardens, and endless vistas of the clean sand and the sparkling translucent sea.
I didn't go there until I'd been in the gardens up the mountain, and had stood on those very cliffs he had visited, looking out over the forested mountains, and listening to the wind in the branches of the noisy clacking coconut palms.
Had he told me about the mountains? That you could look immediately down into the deep soft valleys and that the neighboring slopes seemed so close you thought you could touch them, though they were far, far away?
I don't think so, but he had described well the flowers-the shrimp plant with its tiny blossoms, and the orchid tree and the ginger lilies, yes, those fierce red lilies with their delicate shivering petals, and the ferns nestled in the deep glades, and the waxen bird-of- paradise and the tall stiff pussy willows, and the tiny yellow-throated blossoms of the trumpet vine.
We should walk there together, he had said.
Well, that we would do. Soft the crunch of the gravel. And oh, never had the high swaying coconut palms looked so beautiful as on these bluffs.
I waited until it was past midnight before I made my descent upon the sprawling seaside hotel. The courtyard was as he had said, full of pink azaleas and large waxen elephant ears and dark glossy shrubs.
I passed through the empty darkened dining room and its long open porches and went down on the beach. I went far out in the shallows, so that I might look back from a distance upon the bungalow rooms with their roofed verandas. I found him at once.
The doors to the little patio were completely pulled back, and the yellow light spilled out on the small paved enclosure with its painted table and chairs. Inside, as if on a lighted stage, he sat at a small desk, facing the night and the water, typing away on a small portable computer, the tight small clicking of the keys carrying in the silence, even over the whisper of the lazy softly foaming surf.
He was naked except for a pair of white beach shorts. His skin was very darkly golden as though he spent his days sleeping in the sun. Streaks of yellow shone in his dark brown hair. There was a glow to his naked shoulders and smooth, hairless chest. Very firm muscles at his waist. A slight golden sheen came from the down on his thighs and legs and the very scant bits of hair on the backs of his hands.
I hadn't even noticed that hair when I was alive. Or maybe I hadn't liked it. Didn't really know. I liked it now well enough. And that he seemed a little more slender than I had been hi that frame. Yes, all the bones of the body were more visible, conforming I suppose to some modern style of health which says we must be fashionably underfed. It suited him; it suited the body; I suppose it suited them both.
The room was very neat behind him and rustic in the style of the islands with its beamed ceiling and rose-tiled floor. The bed was covered in a gay pastel fabric printed with a jagged geometric Indian design. The armoire and chests were white and decorated with brightly painted flowers. The many simple lamps ' gave off a generous light.
I had to smile though that he sat amid all this luxury, typing away-David the scholar, dark eyes dancing with the ideas inside his head.
Drawing nearer, I noted that he was very clean-shaven. His nails had been trimmed and buffed, perhaps by a manicurist. His hair was still the same full wavy mop I'd worn so carelessly when I'd been in this body, but it, too, had been trimmed and had an altogether more pleasing shape. There lay his copy of Goethe's Faust beside him, open, a pen lying across it, and many of the pages folded, or marked with small silver paper clips.
I was still taking my time with this inspection-noting the bottle of Scotch beside him, and the thick-bottomed crystal glass, and the pack of small thin cigars-when he looked up and saw me there.
I stood on the sand, well outside the little porch with its low cement railing, but quite visible in the light.
"Lestat," he whispered. His face brightened beautifully. He rose at once and came towards me with the familiar graceful stride. "Thank God you've come."
"You think so?" I said. I thought of that moment in New Orleans when I'd watched the Body Thief scurrying out of the Cafe du Monde and thought that body could move like a panther with someone else inside.
He wanted to take me in his arms, but when I stiffened and moved just a little away, he stood still, and folded his arms across his chest-a gesture that seemed to belong entirely to this body, as I couldn't remember ever seeing him do it before we'd met in Miami. These arms were heavier than his old arms. The chest was broader too.
How naked it looked. How darkly pink the nipples. How fierce and clear his eyes.
"I've missed you," he said.
"Really? Surely you haven't been living as a recluse here?"
"No, I've seen too much of others, I think. Too many little supper parties in Bridgetown. And my friend Aaron has come and gone several times. Other members have been here." He paused. "I can't bear to be around them, Lestat. I can't bear to be at Talbot Manor among the servants, pretending to be a cousin of my old self. There's something really appalling about • what's happened. Sometimes I can't bear to look in the mirror. But I don't want to talk about that side of it."
"Why not?"
"This is a temporary period, one of adjustment. These shocks will eventually pass. I have so much to do. Oh, I'm so glad you've come. I had a feeling you would. I almost left for Rio this morning, but I had the distinct feeling I'd see you tonight."
"Is that so."
"What's the matter? Why the dark face? Why are you angry?"
"I don't know. I don't really require a reason to be angry these days. And I ought to be happy. I will be soon. Always happens, and after all-it's an important night."
He stared at me, trying to figure what I meant by these words, or more properly what was the right thing for him to reply.
"Come inside," he said finally.
"Why not sit here on the porch in the shadows? I like the breeze."