Inamorata (13 page)

When news reached us of the Parisian artist’s suicide, I was in a tavern drinking, of course. My friend, the musician who unknowingly shared my history with her, burst through the door in a blaze of sunlight and dust. He threw himself down at my table and told me the news. “He left a note saying that he had lost his vision. Can you imagine what a hell that would be? He said he had nothing more to live for. How well I understand!”

I thought of Byron.
Once he’d felt the inspiration she could bring him, none other could compare.
I thought of Keats, and “Lamia
.” Though he exaggerates. No one sees that it was really about her.

When I began to hear the rumors of the Viennese composer’s madness, I understood the bargain at last. She gave them inspiration; she made their work immortal. But it came with a terrible price:
His soul, of course.

It never occurred to me to wonder how I had come to believe in the reality of an immortal muse. All I knew was that I was the only one who had made the connection, and because of that, I was something very special indeed. I might not have enough talent as a writer to suit her, but I had something much more important. I knew the truth of her.

I was up two nights mulling over it. I began to believe that if I could stop her, if I could destroy her, I could restore the talent she’d stolen from me. I would be able to write again, and not only that, I would save others from a similar fate. Who knew what more Byron could have accomplished had he not known her kind of inspiration? Perhaps his greatest masterpieces were still ahead of him. How could we ever know what the Parisian painter might have done, or the Viennese composer? Who was she to decide when an artist’s best work was behind him? How could she know what was so unknowable? She had given knowledge and beauty to the world, yes, but how much more had she taken from it?

My task became clear. I had been given a sacred duty, one no other man could share. She had already left Florence, and I followed her. St. Petersburg, Constantinople, too many others, arriving in each only after she’d already gone, stumbling over the revelation and despair she left behind, always lagging by a single step. But then, finally . . . Barcelona. I knew her well by then; I knew how she moved and what she looked for. I discovered who she’d recently brought to her bed—a talented violinist—and when I found him, he was waiting at her door, sitting on the edge of a stone planter.

“She will destroy you,” I told him. “She will make you a bargain. Inspiration and fame for your creative soul.”

I talked to him for more than an hour, trying to convince him to leave her. The next morning, when I went to the cafe where we had promised to meet, he wasn’t there. In frustration, I went back to Odilé’s, hoping to waylay him as he left.

He was there. Slumped over the planter, a pool of blood gathering beneath him from a self-inflicted wound.

I was dismayed. But I’ll also admit I felt a kind of satisfaction. I had failed to keep him alive, but I
had
saved him. I had seen the misery and despair that awaited him, and I knew: Far better to be dead.

After that, what can I tell you? I knew she was on the hunt for the one to replace him and I did my best to dissuade each one. I didn’t realize how well I’d interfered with her plans, nor how advanced her hunger had become. Not until I realized men were disappearing, every one of them an artist of some kind. The talk of foul play was everywhere; the cafes were filled with tension and suspicion. I knew it must have something to do with her, though in the past she’d kept only one at a time. I also knew that I must do something about it, because who else could? Who else knew what she was?

I went to her rooms and knocked, but there was no answer. When I tried the door, it was locked tight. I tried to peer in the window, but the drapes were drawn, and there seemed to be nothing but darkness beyond. And yet, I knew she had not gone. I watched her too closely; I would have known.

I went around to the back and climbed over the wall into the courtyard. It was hot, the sun blinding on the pale stone paving. Flies buzzed around the fallen fruit of an orange tree, and the smell of rotted oranges was heavy on the air, reminding me a bit too well of Paris, and my own misery.

I tried the door. It was locked, but I heard a sound from within, a cry, quickly stifled, and that was enough to force me to action. I took my knife from my coat pocket and forced the lock. Then I pushed the door open slowly and stepped into darkness.

The smell was horrible. Something dead. Rotting flesh. The darkness was heavy and sweltering. I broke into a sweat not just from the heat but from sudden fear. Carefully, I walked through the house. It looked abandoned, not a soul about. Unwashed crockery in the kitchen, food set upon by flies. As silently as I could, I made my way through the empty rooms.

When I got to the door at the end of the hall, the final room, I took a deep breath and twisted the knob. The door swung open—

And what met me was a horror that haunts me still.

There were bodies everywhere. Men, all naked, pale bodies in the darkness, some already bloating in the heat. I stared in shock, and then I heard a noise. I saw a shadow writhing among the dead, and I realized it was her. Odilé, but not Odilé. She was naked as well, her hair loose and tangled like a madwoman’s. But it was her eyes that were the most terrible of all. Glowing eyes, dark as obsidian, reflecting a hunger so deep it was like falling into a void. She raised her head and smiled, and in that smile was evil and madness.

It was then that I truly understood what she was, what Keats, in his dying visions, had seen. It wasn’t only that she’d inspired “Lamia.” She
was
Lamia. She was a succubus. The word was not just a word—a myth—it was real.

“Come to me,” she said, in a voice that was not her voice, but a monster’s. I heard something new in it this time: desperation. “I will choose you, as you wish.” She laughed then, a sound like a nightmare.

It took all my will to run. I heard her calling after me as I fell over my feet in my haste to leave that hell. I burst out into the sunshine of the day and fell onto the stones of the courtyard, gasping. And I felt something in me turn and twist, my life tuning to hers, the task I’d been given by God or fate slipping into place. I knew I had brought her to this. These last months, as I had driven her lovers away, meaning to save them, her hunger had grown and grown, impossible to sate. My efforts to keep her from making her wretched bargain had made her a monster.

After that, I spent months reading everything I could find on monsters and demons. I read every poet who spoke of strange women and beautiful muses and opiate dreams of inspiration. There, in the legends, I discovered the key. Three years. Every three years, she must choose
the one,
she must make the bargain: inspiration and fame—one great immortal work of genius—in return for their creative force. And if the bargain wasn’t made, she would become the monster I’d made her in Barcelona.

And once I knew that, I knew how to destroy her. When I next saw her, in Paris a year and a half later, she was as beautiful as ever; there was no sign of the monster she’d been. But I knew it was there. I knew it lived inside her, and that it was waiting. The men she’d drained in that dark room in Barcelona had given her the strength to lock it away, to become human again. But I wondered what would happen if there were no men, no life force for the demon to draw upon. What if I could keep her from making the bargain once more, and then, when she turned, lock her in a room alone? What if there was nothing for her hunger to devour but its host?

I knew it must work. And when she was gone at last, I could once again be the man—the poet—I was meant to be. I would never be thought lesser again.

O
DILÉ

F
or two nights, I sat beside the window and watched the wavering, twinkling gondola lanterns moving to and fro against the pitch dark of the Canal, the shadows of the huge rats scampering about the
fondamenta
. I waited for the sound of a bell that never rang. It was nearly dawn when I knew he wasn’t coming, but still I sat there watching the fog roll in across the Grand Canal so the barges and the fishermen were only faint shadows within it, and every clank and splash and call was strangely muffled and echoing at the same time—the fog played with Venice’s natural tendency to confuse sounds, creating a labyrinthine puzzle of them, close and far, winding and whispered, the eerie yowling of a cat a block away sounding as if it stood at my elbow, the clang of Antonio pounding something in the courtyard seeming to come from across the city.

I knew my musician was dead then, but still I waited through the second night, hoping for his return until I could wait no longer, until my hunger gnawed as if it might chew its way out. With it came weariness. Only a few weeks left. I had thought perhaps the musician would do—his compositions had a fatal sweetness I thought could be inspired to greatness. And what a story to tell—wrested from an obscure church in Venice, a mysterious woman driving him to ever greater efforts. He was sweet as his music, fervent enough to cast intensity into his work, and perhaps he might have been the one to give me the recognition I longed for: “It was she. It was Odilé. Without her, I am nothing. . . .”

But he was gone, and I knew I must start again. I closed my eyes against exhaustion, desperation and the press of time.

Two nights with nothing had left my hunger pitched and sharp. Not for much longer would I be able to hunt without consequences, but there was no help for it now. I could not stand to be still; I must find the one.

I wished for a salon, an exhibition, something certain. But the only salon in the city was closed to me, and the Rialto was still the easiest place to find artists of all kinds. If nothing else, the market always held the quick relief of street performers. For a few more days, feeding on lesser talents could ease the pain. But only a few more days. Soon, they would not be enough even for that.

By the time the gondola was ready, the fog was starting to lift, the sun casting hazy beams through it that warmed the chill morning. Even the short trip to the Rialto felt too long. When we were finally there, and I stepped onto the
fondamenta
near the Rialto bridge, I heard music coming from beyond the vegetable stalls with their pyramids of green-striped melons and cabbages, squashes and carrots and deep red tomatoes. A violinist, playing with some wistful beauty. Not enough, I knew, for anything more than a respite, but it would have to do.

I made my way through the crowds haggling at the stalls, hurrying toward the music, ignoring the men who looked up when they caught sight of me, their quick and intense interest. My appetite had grown so ravenous now that they must feel it, though they didn’t realize what left them gaping and breathless, what filled them with a lust that had them hurrying off to their wives or lovers.

I pushed through the crowd at the edge of the fish market and was disappointed. The violinist was an old man, and I yearned for youth, for innocence, for things I could never have again, things that made me feel alive. He gasped when I came near—I felt the surge of his talent as he gripped his chest, and I quickly moved away.

I went past the fishing boats moored along the
fondamenta
, with their stinking nets drying in the sun, tawny sails with their decorations of crosses and saint’s symbols limp and half furled, toward a cafe I knew, where performers often entertained at the outdoor tables. And there, yes, was a man with light-brown hair and a winning smile, singing Verdi. A pile of centimes lay in the soft hat at his feet, winking in the sun. He was young and pretty. He had enough talent to ease that empty, churning ache for a day or two perhaps. When he finished I caught his eye and crooked my finger at him. He stepped over to me, curious, a bit disbelieving, and I whispered what I wanted of him.

He swallowed. “Where?” he asked hoarsely. “When?”

I meant to tell him to come with me to the gondola. But the crowd watching him had been slowly wandering away while we spoke, and suddenly I saw what they’d hidden from my view. The words I’d been about to say died on my tongue.

The glint of the sun on blond hair. A pale face and pale blue eyes. He was sitting at one of the tables, alone. He raised a cup to me, smiling that mocking smile I knew so well.

I said to the singer quickly, in a low voice, “This afternoon. In two hours—can you meet me then? At the Ca’ Dana Rosti?”

“Two hours, yes,” he said. He gave me a little bow and smiled. I watched him go, and then I turned back to the cafe.

I went slowly up to the table. He watched me, that smile never leaving his handsome face. He glanced in the direction the singer had gone and raised a brow. “Coming down a bit in the world, aren’t we, Odilé?”

I ignored that. “Nicholas. How strange to find you here in the sunlight. I’d begun to wonder if you were a vampire. You spend so much time lurking about in the shadows.”

“I go where you go,” he said lightly. “I lurk where you lurk.”

“Such clever words. Have you written much poetry lately?” I goaded. “I do keep an eye out for you, but the landscape seems so barren lately—nothing at all from my favorite poet. But perhaps you’ve published something that managed to escape my attention?”

He took a careful sip of his coffee and said, “Unfortunately not. Some foul succubus left me without words.”

“You should stay away from such creatures. They can be deadly.”

“No more so than I.”

I played idly with the many loops of Venetian chain on my wrist. “You’re like a sheep on a rail track, Nicholas. A momentary obstruction only.”

“In your whole history, there has never been anyone like me. Be honest”—he leaned forward, his eyes gleaming—“You’re afraid of me.”

It was true, but I would never let him know it. I was afraid of him, not because he could destroy what I truly was, but because he could destroy Odilé. I could not forget Barcelona, or my fear of the monster inside me, my fear that it was all I was destined to be.

I forced the memory away and gave Nicholas a quelling look. “You’ve such a high opinion of yourself. It was always tiresome.”

“Eventually, I’ll stop you. I’ve
been
stopping you.”

I raised my eyes to his. “Do you think so? Do you think those men meant anything to me? I didn’t want either one. I wouldn’t have chosen either one. They were weak, Nicholas. Like you.”

“Is that so? Which of us was the weaker in Barcelona?”

“You cannot beat me, Nicholas. Why must you try?”

“I think you underestimate me.”

“Oh, I hardly think so.”

He rose. “Really? How do you feel lately, my love? Are you starving yet? Are you killing canaries as you pass?”

I met his gaze. “Why don’t you come home with me and see if you can satisfy? Or no . . . ah wait . . . is there anything left of you to feed upon? Or are your journal pages only”—I ran my fingers down his shirtfront and felt him freeze, the hold of his breath—“blank?”

He stepped back abruptly. “Perhaps I am not what you think I am.”

“No?” I smiled again. “We shall see.”

His pale eyes glittered. “Yes, we shall,” he said, and then he was off before I could say another word. As he walked away, I remembered with unease the look in his eyes in Barcelona. Despite my posturing, the truth was that Nicholas did know how to hurt me—he was the only one on earth who did.