The Vampire (THE VAMPIRE Book 1) (33 page)

The bartender nodded, with a knowing look.

“—je voudrais l’absinthe—qu’est-ce que vous recommendez? Je ne sais pas quoi commander…”

“I speak English—a little,” the bartender replied, his English heavily accented. “Absinthe—you drink before?”

Jason nodded hesitantly.

“Nous avons vingt-cinq pour choisier…je vous recommanderai plusiers et vous pouvez en choisir alors?”

Jason nodded. There were twenty-five to choose from. He would recommend several and Jason could choose. Seemed like a good idea. The bartender showed Jason several bottles and made a few comments, most of it in French with a few English words thrown in, about each. Jason looked the five bottles over. It was still hard to choose. He asked for several minutes to decide. The bartender nodded and left to serve a couple who had just entered and walked up to the bar. When he returned to Jason, he gave an approving nod to Jason’s attire and made the comment:

“J’aime ca. Les vetements.” He made a gesture which Jason took to mean, not too much, just enough. Jason nodded in acknowledgment.

“Ceux—la bas”—the bartender nodded toward several of the more outrageously overdone patrons at the other end of the bar—“ils font semblant d’etre des vampires.”
They only pretend to be vampires
. Jason nodded, translating for himself, hoping he had gotten that right.

“Mais je vous dirai quelque chose…”
But I will tell you something…

“…je crois que les vampires existent vraiment.”

He believes that vampires really do exist
. Jason found that an interesting thought.

“Croyez-vous qu’ils existent vraiment?” The bartender asked for his opinion on the subject.

Jason paused to consider his reply. “I don’t know if they really do exist or not. But I would think not. Highly unlikely.” He replied in hesitant French and then he shook his head no in answer to the bartender’s question.

The bartender held up one finger. Then he began to prepare a small glass of absinthe, skillfully rendering the drink just as Jason had seen Augere do. “Gratuit, pour gouter,” the bartender said, pouring a small sample into a shot glass and placing it in front of him. Free, for tasting, he had said. It was quite good. Jason did not have a lot of experience to compare it with, however. Really he had only the excellent absinthe he had sampled with Augere. And he thought it unlikely that particular one would be readily available to order. The bartender left to wait on several more newly arrived customers.

Jason savored the absinthe. And he was suddenly curious why the bartender believed vampires really did exist. “It’s probably a joke. One I won’t get.”

When the bartender returned again Jason had finished the sample and he selected a different one to try.

“Excellent,” the bartender stated.

“Well, might as well have excellent.”

The bartender expertly repeated the ritual and served Jason another small sample to drink.

“Pendant que vous prenez le temps et appreciez l’absinthe, voulez-vous entendre une histoire tres interessante?” The bartender was asking if he wanted to hear an interesting story while he enjoyed his absinthe. Sure. Why not.

He was liking the ambience of this place, and the taste of the absinthe. He was in no hurry to be elsewhere. The bartender waited for Jason to take a sip. “Tres bien,” Jason announced. He pointed to his glass. “Ca, c’est mon choix.” The bartender gave him the rest of the already prepared drink in a tall glass.

As he prepared a concoction for another customer, the bartender began telling his story using as much English as he could, but the bulk of it was still in French. Jason struggled with the translation. Apparently this man only worked at this bar part time, to help out a friend when it got very busy or the friend was on vacation. He paused to make sure Jason understood. So far, he did.

But, nearly thirty years ago, in 1984 when he was a student, he worked at a different bar. Back before absinthe was legal again in Paris, in 1989—he said it was known by only a small number of people that a small secret supply of absinthe, of a very rare vintage, from around 1910—La Belle Epoque—was kept on hand at the bar where he worked. “Vous comprenez?” Yes, I understand, Jason told him.

“Much better, quite different than what you could get today.” He nodded at Jason’s drink. “It was a limited supply—for select customers only. And only those who knew enough to ask for it. Most people did not. The secret was so old, nearly forgotten. And the absinthe was locked away in a secret cabinet.” Jason had trouble with several of the words, but the bartender substituted words until he was sure Jason got the meaning. “The man who owns this bar now was then the younger brother of that other bar owner.” At least that was what Jason thought he said.

“One evening—I remember it distinctly—it was a summer evening—a young man came into the bar and sat at the counter.

“La premiere pensee—il est trop jeune pour boire d’alcool.” My first thought, Jason easily translated, and he was too young to be drinking alcohol. “He was pale, tall and thin,” the bartender continued.

“Il etait ‘tres beau’ pour un homme; sensual; complet de sexualite mais comme un petit garcon a la fois, avec une visage…innocente.” Jason got the gist of it. The bartender took pains to explain, but some of it was difficult to translate easily into English. Though not attracted to men in that way, he explained, he could not help but be taken by the truly beautiful appearance, like when one is suddenly surprised and overcome by an exquisitely beautiful sight. Jason could only nod. He was feeling a little strange. Perhaps it was the effects of the absinthe. “De voie son corps a bouge…c’est difficile a expliquer…” Jason had trouble translating this, and so did the bartender. Something about how his body moved, it seemed…the bartender could not easily express it, could only convey it was quite out of the ordinary.

Jason sipped at the excellent absinthe. The bartender was totally caught up in his story. To some extent Jason was also, if only because the bartender seemed so eager to tell it.
And why is he so eager?
Jason wondered.

“As I said, he was quite pale,” the bartender continued, most of his story spoken in French still, with a few scattered English words. “His hair was long and very dark. His eyes I remember most: an extraordinary color! Not so much blue as a deep and vibrant shade of violet. You could not forget those eyes.” The bartender’s own voice became distant and softer, almost as if speaking to himself, as he was remembering the rest.

“He spoke French beautifully of course; mais tres doucement—very soft and low, and he was clearly French.” Jason had some difficulty translating this, but, somehow, he knew just what the bartender had meant to say.

“And he asked for a rare vintage of absinthe. Well of course we had it! I didn’t know it for sure; I remember I glanced at the owner, who gave me a nod and said, yes it is okay, give it to him. I remember the owner stood apart, across the room—” the words were coming in a rush and Jason was getting the sense of it, if not each and every word precisely. “…I remember thinking it was very strange; the owner seemed to be a little afraid of him.”

Jason sipped at his absinthe again. It really was very good. Maybe almost as good as the one he had enjoyed with Augere that evening in Boston…

“Et je vous dit Monsieur—cet homme
—
je crois qu’il est un vampire reel.” He was saying now he believed the person he saw was a real vampire.

That’s it?
Jason wondered.
That’s his story? Did I miss something along the way? I must have misunderstood or didn’t translate enough of it accurately. What a letdown
.

Jason shrugged.
Just for that?
“Pour ca, c’est tout?” Jason said to him, hoping he did not come across as sounding rude. Somehow he had expected a bigger finish.

The bartender revealed a small slow smile as he shook his head slowly. Then he laughed, somewhat nervously, and shook his head again. “Ah, non, Monsieur. Pas du tout. Pas pour ca.” He poured a little more of the already prepared absinthe into Jason’s nearly empty glass. “That is not why I believe what I do.

“Non. Je le crois parce que, ce soir, il y a deux heures, un jeune home est entree dans le bar”—he then pointed to the bar stools —“et il s’est assis la.” He indicated a seat two places from where Jason now sat.

Several new customers had now entered the bar. The bartender shrugged. “Apres le cinema, tout le monde ont soif.” He raised his index finger to Jason, a sign he needed to pause his story. He left to wait on the new crowd. Jason felt a little light headed now. It could be the absinthe. He really was enjoying it though.

“To continue,” the bartender returned and began again. “Cet homme ce soir: Tall, thin et tres beau—very, uhm, good—attractive. Long dark hair. Et la peau, tres—blanc, tu sais? Yes, pale.” He nodded then motioned to his own clothing. “Noir, comme ca. And the color—ses yeux—the eyes…pouvez-vous diviner?”

Jason was feeling a little uncomfortable with the conversation just then, and might have been more so if it wasn’t for the absinthe, making him feel quite mellow just now.

“…oui, that same intense and unusual color. Exactly as I remembered…deep violet.” The bartender was nodding slowly as he pronounced the words, most of them in French still, but Jason was able to translate much of it easily. The words he didn’t quite catch, he somehow understood even so.

Jason took a bigger sip of the absinthe. He imagined he must be feeling the full effects now. A strange sensation: a feeling of pleasantly drifting. He wasn’t actively trying to hear the bartender’s words now, but it was impossible not to listen. He could even understand more of the French words now as the man continued.

“The same exact voice, Monsieur. Speaking perfect French. Everything exactly the same as before. Déjà vu.” The bartender waited until Jason was looking into his eyes.

“He looked exactly the way I remembered. Not one day older. No change at all.” Jason understood the French perfectly.

“Well,” Jason began, “that is quite a coincidence. The man must have been the son of the man you met decades ago.” He hoped he was translating accurately. “An amazing resemblance, easily explained. Such things”—what was the French word for coincidences—did he get it right?—“do happen.”

“Ah, oui?” The bartender said with a small smile. “Devinez qu’est-ce qu’il a commande a boire ce-soir—?”

Jason stared at him. He had been asked to guess what the stranger had ordered.

The bartender stepped aside to reveal a padlocked glass cabinet behind the bar. Jason could barely get a view of several dusty looking bottles within, but not the names or labels.

“C’etait la meme chose, encore. Il faut que j’ai trouver la cle, pour lui. Ca, c’est la meme cabinet, comme d’autrefois. La meme absinthe…”

Jason nodded slowly in understanding. The stranger ordered the same thing as had been ordered so long ago. From this same cabinet. The bartender had had to find the key.

“Et,” the bartender continued, “on a une seringue hypodermique, pour preserver l’integrite des contenus de la bouteille.” Fascinating, Jason thought, once he was reasonably sure he had interpreted correctly. They would draw out a small amount of the absinthe, with a syringe, through the sealed bottle stopper, just enough for a serving, to preserve the integrity of the original contents.

“Il savait ou se trouve cette absinthe.” The bartender waited to see Jason’s reaction.

“Deux cent quatre-vingt-dix euros, Monsieur, pour une verre. Il n’a pas meme cligne de l’oeil au prix et il a paye comptant.”

Jason did a quick conversion as well as translation in his head. Around $350 for one glass; the stranger not only knew this absinthe existed, he knew where to find it. He did not even blink an eye at the price and he paid cash.

Jason sipped at his absinthe again.

“I am quite convinced,” the bartender assured him, “that it was exactly the same man I saw about thirty years ago. Exactement la meme homme. Comme j’ai dit: deja vue. And I do believe he is real vampire. Et la meme comme vous, sur son poignet
—
”

Jason did not get to hear the rest of that comment. A new customer came up to the bar, and then two more. The bartender was occupied briefly, preparing more drinks.

When the bartender returned, he had apparently forgotten his previous comment. He observed what must have been Jason’s still dubious expression.

“Je m’en souviens. That evening, in 1984—that first time I saw him—I asked the owner of the bar…he was already an old man then…I asked him about the strange young man. At first he would say nothing. But then later he told me he had left Paris early in 1940. And then he said he had seen this same stranger before, near the end of 1939.”

Jason could only stare at him. He hadn’t gotten all of it; the years mentioned, in particular. The bartender wrote down the years on a napkin and then waited for this information to be acknowledged by Jason’s facial expression. Jason slowly and hesitantly nodded.

The bartender shrugged. “I suppose I did not fully believe what he told me then. That the young man who had entered the bar that evening in 1984 had also come to his bar in 1939. That he looked exactly the same though forty-five years had passed. In 1939 when that mysterious young stranger came in and said he wanted some of the absinthe the bartender got it for him from the locked cabinet. Then the young stranger said the Germans were coming and they would occupy Paris. The bartender, who was twenty-six at the time, was worried about the war. The stranger said to him: ‘you need to leave Paris, now. And you should take the absinthe too. Do not let the Germans have it.’ And then he smiled at him. He gave the owner a large sum of money. The owner, who was Jewish, was able then to take his entire family and leave Paris before the German occupation in June of 1940.”

The bartender paused and his face bore a distant, preoccupied expression. Jason sipped his drink, watching the bartender’s face.

“Je l’ai jamais vraiment cru.”
All these years, I guess I just did not really believe him. Even though I saw with my own eyes what he saw
. “Mais pas avant ce soir.”
But not until tonight did I truly believe it
.