2004
Maria sits, numb, wanting to look anywhere else but into the eyes of her two companions. She stares at the black rectangle that is the room’s only window; once in a while, car headlights shine from below, moving across the sill, ghostly and suggesting movement, honing in on her desire to be alone, away, and not having to deal with the situation before her. She picks lint off her black blouse, crosses and uncrosses her legs, finger-combs her hair, takes a hit off the little one-hitter she clenches in one hand as though it’s life support. She attempts to ignore the near-human anxiety she feels, anxiety that causes one of her crossed legs to swing ceaselessly and manically, her scalp to tingle, and that makes her chew on the inside of her cheek. She had assumed reactions and emotions like these had deserted her long ago. “And isn’t it pretty to think so,” she whispers to herself, now staring down at the floor.
“Are you even listening to us? Maria? Maria!” At the sharp tone of his voice and the sudden spike in volume, Maria raises her head dully to consider Terence. His long blond hair is in disarray, and his usual impeccable dress tonight is absent; he’s wearing a pair of old jeans and a Loyola University sweatshirt (a trophy?). Still, he looks impossibly beautiful, something crafted out of marble or a photograph off the pages of
Vogue
, the model airbrushed to elevate beauty into the realm of the unreal.
“I hear you. What do you want me to say?”
Terence exchanges glances with Edward and Maria reads the quick visual cues that speak of exasperation, that say, “What shall we do with her?”
Edward kneels down before her, sliding his cold hand atop hers. “We want you to say you’re with us. We want you to say you understand and you realize what has to be done, however painful that might be. We want you…” Edward’s voice goes on, a buzzing drone filtering in and out, with certain words rising above the whitish noise, words like “merciful,” “duty,” “rules,” and “danger.” She knows they are trying to talk reason to her, but how can she be reasonable when her heart is broken? (Damn Elise for causing her to fall in love! Damn her for inciting these ridiculous romantic notions…broken heart indeed; but thoughts such as these do little to mitigate her despair.) How can she listen to “what’s right,” and “doing one’s duty,” when the thought of such courses of action fill her with revulsion, fear, and shame?
Their voices filter in dimly, as if they are neighbors on another floor, having a conversation in which she is only vaguely interested.
She tries to conjure up images to send to Elise. Benign things at first, speaking of her love, her devotion, her admiration.
See the two of us by the fireplace in the living room, the flames’ light flickering across our faces and making our eyes sparkle. See you showing me your work, the shy expression on your face that shows you’re uncertain and that you want me to like what you’re exhibiting.
These segue into rougher and more seductive erotic imagery; skin merging and disengaging, tongues dueling, sweat popping out to shine and smooth a silken back, teeth gently piercing the aureole surrounding a nipple, the slow trickle of blood.
She closes her eyes and shuts down the imagery. They are pornography. Elise deserves better. Besides, casting these art house skin-shots out is like casting photographs to the wind. Her thoughts meet only a brick wall, as though Elise has shut down her mind and mentally placed a filter disallowing any of Maria’s thoughts to penetrate. And this, Maria thinks sadly, is probably exactly what she’s done.
Maria closes her eyes and tries to slip away, to go somewhere else in her mind, somewhere where the sound of water hitting against stone will calm her. But nothing works. There is only this vague feeling in her gut; a queasiness that will not abate. Is it possible for her to vomit?
Edward’s hand is on her cheek, stroking. She opens her eyes to see his eyebrows knit together and the sympathetic frown; these speak of his concern for her. Her boys do love her so much! Why isn’t it enough? He licks his lips and begins, saying the same words, hoping repetition will aid in penetrating her consciousness.
“Maria? Maria, are you listening to us?” Edward’s concern highlights the difference between Terence and him. Terence tonight is little more than a powerhouse of hatred and malice. But it’s his extreme emotion and his passion that have always attracted her to him; he may be hard to deal with sometimes, but he has never been boring.
She gives Edward a glimmer of a smile and nods. She turns down the roar in her head, touches Edward, running her fingers across his smooth, bald pate. “I’m sorry. It’s just hard for me to think.” Maria sits up straighter, and realizes these are the people who have stood alongside her for many, many years, going through euphoric heights, depressing lows, and electric danger that threatened their existence in cities all over the world. “What is it you want to say to me? Hmm?” Maria already knows the answer, but delaying it gives her a small—very small—measure of comfort.
“She knows too much.” The words hang in the air like shards of glass, waiting to penetrate, to cut, causing irreversible pain and harm. “I know how you feel, Maria. I don’t want to see her die, either. Here’s a secret: last night I followed her, intending to kill her, intending to make it quick, so we wouldn’t even have to go through what we’re going through right now. But I couldn’t do it. I was so close. My teeth were ready to pierce her flesh. But I couldn’t. Later, though, I realized I was weak. She has to die.” Edward shakes his head.
Maria nods. Her tongue feels fuzzy and thick. A headache is beginning behind one eye. These sensations are so unused as to be completely new, frightening and confusing.
Edward continues. “She knows too much. We can’t allow her go on, with the knowledge she has.”
“Edward’s right,” Terence seethes, hissing. “Letting this Elise person go on living endangers not only us, but all of our kind.”
Maria looks up at him as if she doesn’t understand.
If only that were true.
“You know I’m right, Elise. She’ll talk.”
Maria rolls her eyes.
“Come now.” Terence looks at Maria, sneering. “You allowed yourself to become so infatuated with this mortal you were blind to the laws that have governed all of us since the very beginning.”
Edward frowns, the sorrow in his face genuine. It’s obvious that he hates this. It’s also obvious that he sees no other alternative. “Besides, Maria, she’s rejected you.” Edward breathes in deep: a beat. “She doesn’t want you.”
Terence shouts. “Doesn’t that make you angry? Doesn’t that just piss you off, that she threw away the greatest gift a human can ever receive? Who the fuck doesn’t want immortality?”
“Right now…me.”
Terence goes on, his face close to hers. “Well, maybe if you’re too blinded by love and too stupid to see that she’s tossed you aside like a used condom from a trick, then you have to consider this: she might hate you now. She might very well be full of rage because you, and us, in essence, tried to take away everything that was valuable. And for what? Because we were in love? Love like yours is no present.”
Maria sniffs. What’s this tightness she feels in her throat?
Edward speaks softly, in counterpoint to Terence’s anger and agitation. “You know what has to be.”
Maria feels numb, as if she wouldn’t even feel a switchblade to her heart. But the arguments and what she has known for hundreds of years sink in. “I know, Edward, I know.”
“You know then that she has to be,” Edward sucks in some air, waiting for a moment, “killed.” He shakes his head. “What Terence says is true. For one, it could lead to a bunch of self-righteous mortals showing up here ready to kill us. What if Elise leads that charge? We’re not as invulnerable as we think. All she would have to do is creep inside, throw open the curtains on a sunny day, and whip off our covers. We’d be ash. But not only that, she could help make real our existence, and that could destroy every one of us.” Edward moves close to Maria’s face, whispering, “There’s no other way. We can’t let her live, not with what she knows.”
“Edward’s right.” Terence’s anger continues to burn bright, a match against flint.
Maria cries out. This is all too much. “Edward’s right! Edward’s right!” she shrieks, mocking. “What do you know about love, Terence? You’ve only hated, cutting a path of destruction and death behind you as wide as it is long.”
Terence grabs her arms just before she’s about to pummel his chest. “Don’t take it out on me! All of us must live by the law. Or we could all perish.”
“I don’t believe it. I won’t!” Even as she says it, Maria knows she must believe it. It’s the only truth. She lowers her head and the tears come, painful, blood squeezing through her tear ducts, dripping down her face to land on her jeans in great black drops. She lifts her face to them, anguish stamped across her features. Her sorrow and longing storm inside her, butterfly wings beating against the walls of a sealed jar. She lashes out, knowing that what she’s about to say is untrue, ludicrous, but she says the words anyway. She has to; maybe it’s a kind of absolution. “What would happen if we left her alone? Nothing! What if, just suppose, she did tell someone about us? For one, we could be gone from here in an instant. And maybe it’s time for us to move on, anyway. So what if she told? Who would believe her? Vampires! Blood-sucking fiends!” Maria laughs, but the laugh has no mirth. She continues to smile, teeth clenched. “I’m sure the mortals would rush to demonstrate their safety and their alarm and their credulity.” She lowers her head, unsure if the convulsions racking through her are sobbing or abject laughter.
Edward tries to put his arms around Maria. She pushes him away. “Listen Maria, you know we can’t take a chance. We can’t. It’s always been the way.”
“Damn it’s ‘always been the way!’ Haven’t we learned anything in all these centuries?”
“No!” Terence shouts. “There is no room for debate on this. We must get rid of her as soon as we can. Tonight.”
Maria rushes to the window, panting and staring down at the headlights moving in lines, north and south, below her. Outside, the wind stirs the few leaves left on the trees, sending their dried bodies downward to land silently on the concrete and grass. She picks up on the rustle of the leaves, the dryness and the death. They can’t truly even be called leaves anymore; all the life is gone.
She presses her head against the cool glass. Darkness envelops the world around her, and she’s part of it. Fog has moved in off Lake Michigan and the streetlights glow, as if cauled, in the dim, gray light.
Composing herself with a great show of will, Maria pauses and finally turns to Terence and Edward. “Let’s just be done with it, then.”
2004
Elise has everything packed. One advantage of being poor and depressed is that she hasn’t collected much to pack up. Her clothes and the pieces of art she wants to take with her fit inside two suitcases she had stored in the basement when she moved here. She tries to remember how many years ago that was, but it isn’t so much the time that confounds her, but the distance. She was a different person back then: young, innocent, with the feeling the world held only promise for her. She could not have predicted the lows to which she would sink. One suitcase, a black nylon thing on rollers, holds paints, brushes, solvents, paper and charcoal pencils. On top of the art supplies is a plastic grocery store bag filled with toiletries (she discarded most of the more lurid make-up , with her whore wardrobe; gone is the heavy black eyeliner, the shadow in vibrant shades of blue and green, the bright red lip gloss). The other suitcase is packed tight with drawings and some of her smaller paintings. The others would just have to be left behind; maybe the next tenant would appreciate them.
She will leave the furniture behind. She is certain that subsequent tenants—regardless of how poor—will quickly haul this stuff out to the trash, where even the garbage pickers will eschew it. The only other furniture she is sorry to leave behind is her drawing board and the stool that goes with it. She has had these since her art school days and they served her well; becoming like an easy chair, something she hardly noticed anymore as she sat and worked.
But a drawing table and stool would be hard to get on the bus. Elise has already called ahead to make sure Greyhound has a late-night trip to Cleveland. She hasn’t even bothered to let her parents know she was coming. She will have to assume they would be glad to see her and that their home was always open to her. Elise is certain enough of these facts that she has booked a ticket for the bus, which leaves in three hours, plenty of time for her to catch a southbound Red line train to Harrison Street, then get off, climb up to ground level, and find a city bus to the station. Or maybe she might even splurge on a cab?
Mundane thoughts like these are what keep her from thinking of Maria. Every once in a while, she has the vague feeling Maria is trying to send her something telepathically. But she has tried her best not to leave her mind open, vulnerable to even the slightest contact from her. Yet there’s a slight feeling of anxiety every so often, a signal there is something scratching to get in, just on the periphery of her mind.
Elise knows she is weak, and knows she can’t afford to get in contact with Maria in any way, not even through the psychic merging of their thoughts. So, even after she has packed her bags, she continues to keep herself busy: cleaning out closets, emptying what meager food and drink are in the refrigerator, throwing away old letters and keepsakes (she wants to start all over, once she has had a chance to recover under her mother’s care), dressing herself in a way she hasn’t in a long time. Tonight, she wears a pair of Levis with a hole in the knees and ragged hems, a red University of Wisconsin hooded sweatshirt (she has no connection to the school; she just picked up this particular article of clothing years ago at a thrift store on Halsted Street), and a pair of Asics running shoes. Catching a glimpse of herself, she is almost alarmed at how young she looks in these clothes. She could be a college freshman. The fact is, she isn’t all that much older than that, anyway. She says to her reflection, “You still have a lot ahead of you.”
She is tempted to cut off her hair, but decides to wait until she is in a clearer frame of mind to make such a drastic change to her appearance.
Now, she sits in front of her window, trying to catch a breeze and keep her mind impermeable. The weather has turned Indian summer, almost hot, with a thick cloak of humidity. Ugly. The warmth has brought out the people of her neighborhood, and they congregate on street corners, laughing, shouting, arguing. Here, the flair of a match. There, the sound of glass breaking. A homeless woman pushes a shopping cart by, its wheels creaking. Wait. Hasn’t Elise seen her before? Strains of “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” fade in, then out again.
Elise closes her eyes. It is in this forced darkness she hears the thrum of a motorcycle engine. It sounds like it’s far away, its roar distant, but distinct, just under the sounds of all the other vehicular traffic on the roads surrounding her. The bass thrum of the engine causes her to stiffen and tense.
She backs away from the window, flattening herself against the wall, unable to open her eyes or close her ears as the sound grows louder. Sweat pops out on her forehead. Her hearts beats out an uncomfortable rhythm, staccato. “It’s just a motorcycle,” she whispers to herself. “It could be anyone.”
Sliding down to the floor, she keeps her back against the wall, murmuring “anyone” over and over.
She knows, with certainty, the approaching motorcycle will not be ridden by just anyone. It will be one of them. Somehow, she also doesn’t sense that it’s Maria drawing near. She’s already spoken with Edward. So it must be Terence. She pictures him astride the Harley, his mean/beautiful chiseled features bearing the stamps of confidence and determination. The image causes her to giggle, but the giggle is something preceding hysteria. There’s nothing funny about it.
Maybe none of these creatures even exist,
she tells herself,
and you’re just out of your fucking mind.
“You don’t have to answer the door. You don’t have to talk.” She wishes she had already left for the bus station. She knows she would have had several hours to kill, but at least she wouldn’t be as vulnerable. Sure, there are often plenty of scary people milling around in a bus station, especially at night, especially in a city like Chicago, but none of them have the ability to say, with such charm, “I vant to drink your blood.”
She giggles again, then stiffens as the roar of the bike engine becomes deafening, then abruptly cuts, leaving silence in its wake. For just one moment, it seems that not only has the engine died down, but also all of the voices and traffic on the street, too. Elise stiffens and resists the urge to creep to the window.
She holds her breath, listening. She hears the creak and slam of the door downstairs (will the landlord never get that lock fixed?), then the slow, heavy footsteps of someone wearing boots, the creak of leather and chains.
In spite of being prepared for a visit for the last fifteen minutes, she screams when the knock on her door sounds. She can barely catch her breath.
Then Terence speaks through the door. His voice is not threatening, but perfectly reasonable and, in his way, friendly. “Elise? Elise, I know you’re in there. Please open the door. I just need to talk to you for a minute. Really, I mean you no harm.”
Elise lets loose a titter. Terence saying he means her no harm is about as credible as a Christian fundamentalist campaigning for legalizing abortion, or gay marriage.
The knock sounds again. “Just ride it out. Ride it out,” she whispers to herself.
A jingle of the doorknob. “Elise? Come on. I’m serious. I need to talk to you. It’s important.”
Elise stands and backs away from the door, as if she expects it to be broken down and Terence to come flying into the room, fangs bared. She will end up like the poor little girl she heard about on the news, flayed and drained on a beach.
But Terence’s soothing voice doesn’t match the image. “Look, I wanted just to talk to you and not to all of your neighbors…” He pauses, and she hears footsteps descending the hall stairs. “…Or anyone else who might be passing by, but you give me no choice. Elise, listen: Maria is ill.”
Elise runs a hand across her face, her stomach beginning to churn. “Oh yeah, right,” she manages to blurt out. “Why should I believe you? I thought you never even got sick; I thought you were immortal.”
Terence sighs. “People think lots of things about us that aren’t true. We can feel pain. We are capable of ailing.” He pauses, and Elise feels her resolve beginning to crumble. Sure, it sounds like malarkey, but what if he is telling the truth? Is she so callous that she can really turn her back on Maria, the only woman to have stirred such feelings of tenderness and need, despite the surreal aspects of their relationship? Terence continues, “I couldn’t care less what you do. Maria asked me to come here because she couldn’t come herself. She just wants to see you…one last time.”
She hears the weight of Terence’s head against the door, followed by an exasperated outrush of air. “I would think you’d have the decency, especially since you’re the one responsible for her stress. Yes, stress affects us and can make us ill.”
Elise’s mouth is dry. She shakes her head, disappointed in herself, fearful she has in some way unintentionally harmed Maria, and suspicious that she has been duped, and moves closer to the door.
“Please, please, please. You want me to get down on my knees and beg? Open the door and I will.”
Elise lets her mind go blank and she tosses her fears and concerns aside. She takes a breath, reaches for the doorknob, turns it, and flings the door open.
“That won’t be necessary,” she says, resigned.
Terence smiles. There is the satisfied glimmer of an attacker just about to pounce on its stunned prey and Elise shuts her eyes for the briefest of moments.
She jerks her head back. “Why don’t you come on inside?” She steps aside to let him enter, believing she is making the most serious mistake of her life, which, when she considers her history, is serious indeed.