Anne Rice - Violin

But it was not concerning Faye.

It was in the old fancy script, the fine eighteenth-century script, firmly written.

I must see you. Come up to the old hotel. I promise you, I will not try to hurt you.

Your Stefan.

Baffled, I stared at this. "You go on up to the suite," I said to Roz.

"What's the matter with you?"

There wasn't time to answer. With the violin in the shoulder sack, I had to run down the curved drive to catch Antonio, who had just brought us from the airport.

We went on the tram alone, without bodyguards, but Antonio himself was a formidable man and afraid of no sneak thieves and we saw none. Antonio called on his cell phone. One of the bodyguards would come up the mountain to meet us at the hotel.

He'd be there in minutes.

I rode in stiff silence. Over and over I opened the note. I read the words. It was Stefan's writing, Stefan's signature.

Good God.

When we reached the Hotel stop, the next to last, we got off and I asked Antonio if he would wait for me on the bench, right by the track, where the waiting passengers sat, and I told him I wasn't afraid to be alone in this forest and he could hear me shout if I needed him.

I walked uphill, step after step, remembering suddenly with a tight smile, the Second Movement of the Beethoven's Ninth. I think I heard it in my head.

Stefan stood at the cement barricade over the deep gorge. He was dressed in his nondescript black clothes. The wind was blowing his hair. He looked alive, solid, a man enjoying the vista-the city, the jungle, the sea.

I stood, some ten feet from him.

"Triana," he said. He turned and only tenderness came out of him. "Triana, my love." His face was as pure as I'd ever seen it.

"What trick is this, Stefan?" I asked. "What now? Has some evil force given you the very tack to take it away from me?"

I had hurt him. I had struck him right between the eyes, but he shook it off, and I saw again, yes, again, tears spring to his eyes. The wind blew his long black hair in streaks and his eyebrows came together as he bowed his head.

"I am crying again too," I said. "I thought laughter had become our language, but now I see it's tears again. What can I do to stop it?"

He beckoned for me to come close.

I couldn't refuse, and suddenly felt his arm around my neck, only he made no move for the velvet sack which I brought down gently in front of me.

"Stefan, why didn't you go? Why didn't you go into the light? Didn't you see it?

Didn't you see who was there, beckoning, waiting to guide you?"

"Yes, I saw," he said. He stood back.

"What then, what keeps you here? Why this vitality again? Who is it who pays now for this with memories or sorrow? What do you do, raise your educated tenor voice, no doubt tutored in Vienna, as fine as your violin style....

"Hush, Triana." It was a humble voice. Serene. His eyes were only quiet and patient.

"Triana, I see the light continuously. I see it always. I see it now. But Triana-"

His lips quivered.

"What is it?"

"Triana, what if; what if; when I go into that light-?"

"Go! God, can it be worse than the purgatory you revealed to me? I don't believe it. I saw it. I felt its warmth. I saw it."

"Triana, what if; when I go, the violin goes with me?"

It took one second for the connection to be made, for us to look into each other's eyes, and then I saw this light too, only it was not part of anything around it. The late afternoon kept its radiant glow, the forest its stillness. The light clung only to him, and I saw his face change again, transcending anger, or rage, or sorrow, or even confusion.

I had made my decision, after all. He knew.

I lifted the sack with the violin and bow and I reached out and put it in his hands.

He raised his hands to say no, no. "Perhaps not!" he whispered. "Triana, I'm afraid."

"So am I, young Maestro. And I'll be afraid when I die too," I said.

He turned and looked away from me, as if into a world I couldn't possibly measure.

I saw only a radiance, a swelling brightness that made no assault on my eyes or my soul, but only made me feel love, profound love and trust.

"Goodbye, Triana," he said.

"Goodbye, Stefan."

The light was gone. I stood on the road in the rain forest above the ruined hotel. I stood staring at stained walls, and the city of towers and hovels down below, going on for miles and miles over mountains and valleys.

The violin was gone.

The sack in my hands was empty.

Chapter 21

THERE was no point in calling Antonio's attention to this, that the violin was gone. Our bodyguard had come with the van.

I held the sack as if it contained my violin. We rode down the mountain in silence.

The sun came pouring through the open windows of the lofty green leaves, it threw down sanctifting shafts on the road, and the cool air touched my face.

My heart was brimming, but I couldn't name the freling. Not completely. Love, oh, yes, love, love and wonder, yes, but more, something more, some fear of all that lay ahead, of the empty sack, fear for myself and fear for all those I loved and all those who now depended upon me.

I thought dim rational thoughts as we sped through Rio. It was near dark when we reached the hotel. I slipped out of the van, waving to my loyal men, and went inside, not even stopping at the desk to see if there was a message.

My throat was tight. I couldn't speak. I had one thing to do only. That was to ask Martin for the violin we carried with us, the short Strad we had bought, or the Guarneri, and see what happened.

Oh, bitter small things on which the fate of a whole soul hangs and with it the whole universe known to that soul. I didn't want to see the others. But I had to see Martin, had to find the violin.

When the elevator doors opened, I heard them all shrieking and laughing.

For a moment I couldn't interpret this sound.

Then I crossed the hall and hammered on the door of the Presidential Suite.

"It's Triana, open up!" I said.

It was Glenn who pulled back the door. He was delirious. "She's here, she's here,"

he cried.

"Darlin'," said Grady Dubosson. "We just put her on the plane and brought her down, soon as they stamped that passport."

I saw her against the distant window, her small head, her small body, a tiny waif of a being, Faye. Only Faye was that small, that delicate, that perfectly proportioned, as if God loved as much to make elves and small gende children as he did to make grown things.

She wore her faded jeans, her inevitable and characteristic white shirt. Her auburn hair was cut short. I couldn't see her features in the twilight glow from the window.

She ran into my arms.

I closed my arms around her and I held her. How very very small she was, perhaps half my weight, so little that I might have crushed her like a violin.

"Triana, Triana, Triana!" she cried. "You can play the violin. You can play.

You've got the gift!"

I watched her. I couldn't speak. I wanted to love, wanted to welcome, I wanted a warmth to flow from me as it had come with the light to Stefan on the road in the forest.

But for the moment I only saw her small bright face, her pretty gleaming blue eyes, and I thought, She is safe, she is not dead, she is in no grave, she is here, and she is unharmed.

We are all together again.

Roz came booming over, throwing her arms around me, lowering her head and her voice. I know, I know, I know, we should be angry, we should scream at her, but she's back, she's all right, she's been on some dangerous adventure, but she's come home!

Triana, she's here. Faye is with us."

I nodded. And this time when I held Faye, I kissed her thin cheek. I felt her small head, as small as a child's head. I felt her lightness, her fragility and also some terrible strength in her, born of the black water of the womb, and the dark house, of the stumbling mother, of the coffin lowered into the ground.