Anne Rice - Servant of the Bones

“I thought that was it,” she said. “When I saw you coming, you looked so happy, except your hair kept blowing in your face. Here, let me give you this.” She laughed with simple gaiety as she removed a long gold chain from around her neck.

“But I have nothing to give you for it,” I said.

“Your smile is what you gave me,” she said, and rushing behind me, she gathered my hair back at the nape of my neck and looped the chain around it. “Ah, now, you look cooler and more comfortable,” she said, jumping in front of me. Her little tunic barely covered her underwear, and she danced on naked legs and sandals that had only one buckle to them.

“Thank you, thank you most kindly,” I said with a deep bow. “Oh, I wish I had something, I don’t know where to…” How could I bring to myself some valuable object without stealing it? I felt ashamed as I looked at the scarf.

“Oh, I would give you this…”

“I don’t want anything from you!” she said, laying a little hand on mine and on the scarf. “Smile again!” And when I did she cried out with laughter.

“I wish you blessings all your life,” I said. “I wish I could kiss you.”

She stood on tiptoe, threw her arms around my neck, and planted on me a luscious kiss that woke every molecule of the body. I trembled, not able to gently remove her from me, but fast becoming her utter slave, and all this on the brightly lighted street in the brisk ocean breeze, with hundreds meandering on both sides.

Something distracted me. It was a call. It was Rachel’s call to me, and Rachel was very close, and she was crying.

“I have to go now, pretty girl,” I said. “You lovely girl.” And I kissed her again and hurried down the street, trying to remember to walk at a human pace. I could see Rachel’s building up the slope.

I was there in less than five minutes. The kiss of the girl had been like a drink of wine for a mortal man. I was laughing to myself. I was so happy to be alive suddenly that I even felt a morsel of compassion for all those who had ever wronged me or anyone. But that passed fast enough. Hate was too much a part of my character.

These kind gentle people might melt it, however. These kind ones.

Approaching the garden terraces of the building, I looked up at its glorious height. Then I climbed quickly over the fence and sprinted on the drive, hardly realizing that I had bypassed a security gate as I headed for the front doors of Rachel’s home.

A huge white limousine was parked there and Rachel was just getting out of it. Ritchie, the faithful driver, had her by the arm. He was agitated though silent. No reporters or anyone around. Only the building attendants in white uniforms, and the breeze rippling through the purple Egyptian lilies.

I turned and saw the sea again stretching forever under the white clouds. This was like heaven to me. Then in the other direction beyond the building I saw an inland bay. More gleaming, dreamy beautiful water, and beyond it towers of light.

I loved this world.

As I drew up to her, I babbled with joy.

“Look, Rachel, there’s water all around us,” I said. “And the sky is so visible, so high, look at the curling and rolling clouds. You can see their shapes and their whiteness as if it’s day here.”

She was rigid. She stared.

I slipped the scarf into her hands, and wound her hands up with it.

“That’s the scarf,” I said. “It was on Esther’s bed.”

She shook her head. She wanted to say things. She and the somber Ritchie both stared at me in plain shock.

“I’ve never fainted in my life,” she said. “I think I might now.”

“No, no, it’s only me. I’ve come back. I saw Gregory, I know what he’s up to, this is the scarf. Don’t faint. But if you want to faint, go ahead. I’ll carry you.”

The wide glass doors swung open. Attendants preceded her with her leather bundle and some other suitcase I’d never seen before. Ritchie stared at me and shook his head. His wrinkled face showed anger.

Then she came close.

“Now you see,” I said, “all I’ve told you is true.”

“Is it?” she whispered. She was dead white.

“Come on, let’s get inside,” said Ritchie. He did pick her up, and he carried her in front of me to the elevator. Old as he was, he carried her inside easily in his arms.

“Let me in,” I said as the doors started to close. But Ritchie glared at me with a darkly furrowed brow, and jabbed the button and blocked my path.

“All right, have it your way,” I said.

I met them at the top. It was just a speedy rush up the steps, rather like racing when I was a boy.

Dumbfounded and enraged, and still carrying her, as she staled at me, Ritchie rushed to her doors and put the key in the lock. The attendants went in with her luggage.

“Put me down now, Ritchie,” she said. “It’s okay. Wait downstairs. Take the others with you.”

“Rachel!” he said. He was staunch, suffering. His gnarled old fingers were curled for a fight.

“Why are you so afraid of me?” I asked. “You think I would hurt her?”

“I don’t know what to think!” he said in a roughened, aged voice. “I’m not thinking.”

She pulled me into the door. “All of you, go,” she said.

I saw a blurred panorama of beautiful rooms, many open to the sea, and others open to a garden, just like the courtyard of our house when I was a boy, and the courtyard I could almost remember from that Greek city on the sea where I’d been most unhappy and then happy. I was dazed.

The loveliness of the place, its warmth, its windows framing Heaven is almost impossible to describe. It flooded me with love, and I think the memory of Zurvan touched me, not with words but with revelations. I was washed clean by love and felt a sense of ease. I understood that there could be a world in which only love was the significant virtue. A sense of well-being overcame me. But I did not try to remember anything.

Everywhere soft white curtains waved in the wind. The courtyard exploded with giant red African flowers, lovely purple vines, and the most lacy and soft trees, dancing in the captured breeze. The place was full of the scent of the flowers.

Rachel slammed the front door on those outside, including her driver angel, and she slid the lock and put up a little chain, and then she looked at me.

“You believe me now?” I asked.

She leaned towards me.

“Let me hold you.”

She tumbled softly against me. “Take me to my bed,” she said. “There, through the garden and over there, to the left, my bed.”

She put her arms around my neck and I did as she said. She was light, perfumed, tender.

It was the most marvelous room, open to the sea on all three sides, it was windows and windows; a rush of remembered warmth overcame me again. But where in the world had I ever seen such clouds, and tossed among them in the glowing light the stars, so friendly and small, and kindly.

I set her down on a huge bed of silk, covered with silk blankets and pillows; a soft golden color seemed to be in every fabric or tapestry or design in some way, and the room was filled with soft molded chairs, Turkish luxury.

I smelled the salt, and her perfumed sweetness, and I looked down on her, her wax-pure face. Tenderly as I could, I kissed her forehead.

“Don’t be afraid, darling one,” I said. “Everything I told you was true. You must believe me. You must tell me what you know about Esther and Nathan.”

She began to sob, and then turned, faint, and shivering, and nestled into the pillows. I sat there. I pulled up a silken cover over her, something full of the French flowers. But she didn’t need it.

“No, the air itself,” she said. “The air. Kiss me again. Hold me again. Be with me.”