Anne Rice: Violin

"Oh, yes," I said, "I have to see it." I looked back, but we had turned the bend. We went higher and higher.

Finally we had come to the end, and to the crowd of tourists waiting to return. We stepped onto the cement platform.

"Ah, yes, well," said Antonio. "Now we climb the steps to Christ."

"Climb the steps!" declared Martin.

Behind us, the bodyguards sauntered side by side, moving their knaki vests back so we and everybody else could see their shoulder holsters and their black guns. One of them gave me a tender respectful smile.

"It is not so bad," said Antonio. "It is many many steps, but it is broken up, you see, and there are places to stop at every . . . how would you say it? ... stage, and you can get something cool to drink. You do wish to carry the violin yourself? You don't want me to-?"

"She always carries it," said Martin.

"I have to go to the top," I said. "Once as a child, I saw this in a film, Christ with his arms outstretched. As if on a crucifix."

I walked ahead.

How lovely it was, the crowds slack and lazy, and the little shops selling cheap trinkets and canned drinks, and people sitting idly at the scattered metal tables. All so mellow in this beautiful heat, and the fog blew up the mountain in white gusts.

"These are clouds," said Antonio. "We are in the clouds."

"Magnificent!" I cried. "The balustrade, it's so beautifully done, Italian isn t it?

Martin, look, here everything is mixed, old and new, European and foreign."

"Yes, it is very old, this balustrade, and the steps, see, they are not steep."

We crossed landing after landing.

Now we walked in perfect dense whiteness. We could see each other and our feet and the ground, but scarcely anything else.

"Oh, this is not Rio," said Antonio. "No, no, you must come back when the sun is out, you cannot see.

"Point out Christ, which direction?" I asked.

"Miss Becker, we are standing at the very base of the statue. Step back here and look up."

"To think we are standing in the heavens," I said.

Like Hell.

"It's all mist to me," said Martin, but he gave me an amiable smile. "You're right, this is some country, some city." He pointed to the right where a great hole had opened up and we could see the me tropolis below, greater than Manhattan or Rome, sprawled out before us. The gap closed.

Antonio pointed above.

Suddenly a common miracle occurred, small and wondrous.

The great giant granite Christ appeared in the white mist, only yards away from us, his face high above us, and his arms rigid as they reached out, not to embrace but to be crucified; then the figure vanished.

"Ah, well, keep watching," said Antonio, pointing again.

A pure whiteness covered the world, and then suddenly the figure appeared again, in the obvious thinning of the air. I wanted to cry, and I started to cry.

"Christ, is Lily here? Tell me!" I whispered.

"Triana," said Martin.

"Anyone can pray. Besides, I don't want her to be here." I backed up; the better to see Him again, my God, as once again the clouds opened and closed.

"Ah, it's not so bad on this cloudy day, perhaps, as I supposed," said Antonio.

"Oh, no, it's divine," I said.

You think this will help you? Like pulling your Rosar,' out from under the pillows that night I left you?

"Are there any cloisters left to your mind?" I barely moved my lips, the words a near senseless murmur. "Didn't you learn anything from our dark journey? Or are you all bent out of nature now, like the wraiths that used to ragtag after you? I wasn't supposed to see your Rio, was I, only the memories of my own for which you hungered.

Jealous that I love it so? What holds you back? The strength is ebbing away, and you hate and you hate..."

I wait for the ultimate moment for your humiliation.

"Ah, I should have known," I whispered.

"I wish you wouldn't say the Hail Marys out loud," said Martin lightly. "It makes me think of my Aunt Lucy and the way she made us listen to the Rosary on the radio every evening at six o'clock, fifteen minutes, kneeling on the wooden floor!"

Antonio laughed. "This is very Catholic." He reached out, touched my shoulder and Martin's shoulder. "My friend, it is going to rain. If you want to see the hotel before the rain, we should go to the tram now."

We waited for the clouds to break one final time. The great severe Christ appeared. "If Lily's at peace, Lord," I said, "I don't ask that you tell me."

"You don't believe that crap," said Martin.

Antonio was shocked. Obviously he couldn't know how much everyone in my immediate family lectured me daily and eternally.

"I believe that wherever Lily is, she has no need of me now. I believe that of all the truly dead."

Martin didn't listen.

There, once more, loomed our Christ, arms rigid as though he were on the crucifix at the end of the Rosary.

We hurried to the tram.

Our bodyguards, lounging against the balustrade, crunched their drink cans and tossed them into the trash bin and followed along.

The mist was wet by the time we reached the car.

"It's the first stop?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, and we can't miss it," Antonio said. "I have called for the car. It is a very steep drive up, but not so hard down, you see, and we can take our time if you like, and then it won't matter if it rains, of course, I mean I am sorry that the sky is not clear. .

"I love it."

Whoever used this first tram stop? This stop beside the abandoned hotel?

There was a parking lot here. Some drove up, no doubt, in pow erful little cars, parked here, and took the tram to the summit. But there was nothing else to shelter one here.

The vast ocher-colored hotel was solid, but obviously utterly in neglect.

I stood spellbound looking at it. The clouds did not press so far down here, and I could see the view of the city and the sea that these shuttered windows had once commanded.

"Ah, such a place . .

"Yes, well," said Antonio, "there were plans, many plans, and perhaps . . . see, here, look through the fence." I saw a walkway, I saw a courtyard, I looked up at the faded ocher shutters that covered the windows, at the tiled roo£ To think, I could... I really could.. . if I wanted to...

Some impulse was born in me, some impulse I hadn't felt anywhere else in our travels, to stake out some beautiful retreat on this spot, to come here at times away from New Orleans and breathe the air of this forest. There seemed no more beautiful place on earth than Rio.

"Come," said Antonio.

We walked past the hotel. A thick cement railing guarded us from a gorge. But we could see now the great depth of the building and how it was positioned out over the valley. It broke my heart, this loveliness. Beneath me, the banana trees plunged in a straight line, down and down the mountainside as if following the path of one root or spring, and all round the lush growth reached up, and the trees swayed over our heads.

Across the road, in back of us, the forest was steep and dark and rich.

"This is Heaven."

I stood quiet. I let it be known. Just a moment. I didn't have to ask. It was matter of gestures. The gentlemen moved away, smoking their cigarettes, talking. I couldn't hear them. The wind didn't blow here as it did on the peak. The clouds were moving down, but slowly and thinly. It was quiet, and still, and below lay the thousands upon thousands of houses, buildings, towers, streets, and then the exquisite placid beauty of the endless blue water.

Lily was not here. Lily had gone, as surely as the spirit of the Maestro had gone, as surely as most spirits go, the spirit of Karl, the spirit of Mother, surely. Lily had better things to do than to come to me, either to console or torment.