TWENTY-FOUR

THE rain forest of South America-great deep tangle of woods and jungle that covers miles upon miles of the continent, blanketing mountain slopes and crowding into deep valleys, and breaking only for broad glittering rivers and shimmering lakes-soft and verdant and lush and seemingly harmless when seen through the drifting clouds from high above.

The darkness is impenetrable when one stands upon the soft, moist ground. The trees are so high there is no heaven above them. Indeed, creation is nothing but struggle and menace amid these deep moist shadows. It is the final triumph of the Savage Garden, and not all the scientists of civilization will ever classify every species of painted butterfly or speckled cat or flesh-eating fish or giant coiling snake, which thrives in this place.

Birds with feathers the color of the summer sky or the burning sun streak through the wet branches. Monkeys scream as they reach out with their tiny clever little hands for vines as thick as hemp rope. Sleek and sinister mammals of a thousand shapes and sizes crawl in remorseless search of one another over monstrous roots and half-buried tubers, under giant rustling leaves and up the twisted trunks of saplings dying in the fetid darkness, even as they suck their last nourishment from the reeking soil.

Mindless and endlessly vigorous is the cycle of hunger and satiation, of violent and painful death. Reptiles with eyes as hard and shining as opals feast eternally upon the writhing universe of stiff and crackling insects as they have since the days when no warm-blooded creature ever walked the earth. And the insects-winged, fanged, pumped with deadly venom, and dazzling in their hideousness and ghastly beauty, and beyond all cunning-ultimately feast upon all.

There is no mercy in this forest. No mercy, no justice, no worshipful appreciation of its beauty, no soft cry of joy at the beauty of the falling rain. Even the sagacious little monkey is a moral idiot at heart.

That is-there was no such thing until the coming of man.

How many thousands of years ago that was, no one can tell you for certain. The jungle devours its bones. It quietly swallows up sacred manuscripts as it gnaws on the more stubborn stones of the temple. Textiles, woven baskets, painted pots, and even ornaments of hammered gold ultimately dissolve on its tongue.

But the small-bodied, dark-skinned peoples have been there for many centuries, that is beyond question, forming their friable little villages of palm-frond huts and smoky cooking fires, and hunting the abundant and lethal game with their crude spears and their deadly poison-tipped darts. In some places they make their orderly little farms as they have always done, to grow thick yams, or lush green avocados, red peppers, and corn. Lots of sweet, tender yellow corn. Little hens peck at the dust outside the small carefully constructed houses. Fat, glossy pigs snuffle and snuggle in their pens.

Are these humans the best thing in this Savage Garden, warring as they have done so long upon one another Or are they simply an undifferentiated part of it, no more complex ultimately than the crawling centipede or the slinky satin-skinned jaguar or the silent big-eyed frog so very toxic that one touch of his spotted back brings certain death

What have the many towers of great Caracas to do with this endless sprawling world that comes so close to it Whence came this metropolis of South America, with its smog-filled skies and its vast teeming hillside slums Beauty is beauty where you find it. At night, even these ranchitos as they call them-the thousands upon thousands of shacks that cover the steep slopes on either side of the roaring freeways-are beautiful, for though they have no water, and no sewerage, and they are crowded beyond all modern questions of health or comfort, they are nevertheless strung with bright, shining electric lights.

Sometimes it seems that light can transform anything! That it is an undeniable and irreducible metaphor for grace. But do the people of the ranchitos know this Is it for beauty that they do it Or do they merely want a comfortable illumination in their little shacks

It doesn't matter.

We can't stop ourselves from making beauty. We can't stop the world.

Look down upon the river that flows past the small outpost of St. Laurent, a ribbon of light glimpsed here and there for an instant from the treetops as it makes its way deeper and deeper into the forest, coming at last upon the little Mission of St. Margaret Mary-a gathering of dwellings in a clearing around which the jungle patiently waits. Isn't it beautiful, this little cluster of tin-roofed buildings, with their whitewashed walls and crude crosses, with their small lighted windows, and the sound of a single radio playing a thin song of Indian lyrics and merrily beating drums

How pretty the deep porches of the little bungalows, with their scattering of painted wooden swings and benches and chairs. The screens over the windows give the rooms a soft drowsy prettiness, for they make a tiny tight grid of fine lines over the many colors and shapes and thereby somehow sharpen them and render them more visible and vibrant, and make them look more deliberate-like the interiors in an Edward Hopper painting, or in a child's bright picture book.

Of course there is a way to stop the rampant spread of beauty. It has to do with regimentation, conformity, assembly-line aesthetics, and the triumph of the functional over the haphazard.

But you won't find much of that here!

This is Gretchen's destiny, from which all the subtleties of the modern world have been eliminated-a laboratory for a single repetitive moral experiment-Doing Good.

The night sings its song of chaos and hunger and destruction in vain around this little encampment. What matters here is the care of a finite number of humans who have come for vaccination, surgery, antibiotics. As Gretchen herself has said-to think about the larger picture is a lie.

For hours, I wandered in a great circle through the dense jungle, carefree and strong as I moved through impassable foliage, as I climbed over the high fantastical roots of the rain trees, as I stood still here and there to listen to the deep tangled chorus of the savage night. So tender the wet waxen flowers growing in the higher more verdant branches, slumbering in the promise of the morning light.

Once again, I was beyond all fear at the wet, crumbling ugliness of process. The stench of decay in the pocket of swamp. The slithering things couldn't harm me and therefore they did not disgust me. Oh, let the anaconda come for me, I would love to feel that tight, swiftly moving embrace. How I savored the deep, shrill cry of the birds, meant surely to strike terror in a simpler heart. Too bad the little hairy-armed monkeys slept now in the darkest hours, for I should have loved to catch them long enough to bestow kisses upon their frowning foreheads or their lipless chattering mouths.

And those poor mortals, slumbering within the many small houses of the clearing, near to their neatly tilled fields, and to the school, and the hospital, and the chapel, seemed a divine miracle of creation in every tiny common detail.

Guarding my coffin during daylight hours-an Egyptian-style sentinel, commanded to tear the throat out of any mortal intruder who ever found his way down the sanctuary stairs.

But I would see him soon enough. The whole world waited beyond these jungles. When I closed my eyes and made of my body a subtle receiver, I could hear over the miles the dense noisy traffic of Caracas, I could hear the sharp accents of her amplified voices, I could hear the thick pounding music of those dark air-conditioned dens where I draw the killers to me, like the moths to the bright candle, so that I might feed.

Here peace reigned as the hours ticked away in the soft purring tropic silence. A shimmer of rain fell from the low and cloudy sky, tamping down the dust of the clearing, speckling the clean-swept steps of the schoolhouse, tapping ever so lightly upon the corrugated tin roofs.

Lights winked off in the small dormitories, and in the outlying houses. Only a dull red illumination flickered deep inside the darkened chapel, with its low tower and big shiny silent bell.

Small yellow bulbs in their rounded metal shades shone upon the clean paths and whitewashed walls.

Lights went dim in the first of the little hospital buildings, where Gretchen worked alone.

Now and then I saw her profile against the window screens. I caught a glimpse of her just inside the doorway, seated at a desk long enough to scratch some notes on paper, her head bent, her hair gathered at the nape of her neck.

Finally I moved silently towards the doorway, and slipped into the small, cluttered office, with its one glaring lamp, and to the door of the ward itself.

Children's hospital! They were all small beds. Crude, simple, in two rows. Was I seeing things in this deep semidarkness Or were the beds made of crude wood, lashed at the joints, and hung with netting And on the small colorless table, was that not a stub of candle on a small plate

I felt dizzy suddenly; the great clarity of vision left me. Not this hospital! I blinked, trying to tear loose the timeless elements from those that made sense. Plastic sacks of intravenous food glistening on their chrome racks at bedside, weightless nylon tubing shining as it descended to the tiny needles stuck in thin fragile little arms!

This wasn't New Orleans. This wasn't that little hospital! Yet look at the walls! Are they not stone I wiped the thin sheen of blood sweat from my forehead, staring at the stain on the handkerchief. Was that not a blond-haired child lying in that distant little bed Again, the dizziness swept over me. I thought I heard a dim, high-pitched laughter, full of gaiety and easy mockery. But that was a bird surely in the great outer darkness. There was no old female nurse in homespun skirts to her ankles, and kerchief about her shoulders. She'd been gone for centuries, along with that little building.

But the child was moaning; the light gleamed on her small rounded head. I saw her chubby hand against the blanket. Again, I tried to clear my vision. A deep shadow fell over the floor beside me. Yes, look, the apnea alarm with its tiny glowing digits, and the glass-doored cabinets of medicines! Not that hospital, but this hospital.

So you've come for me, Father You said you would do it again.

No, I won't hurt her! I don't want to hurt her. Was I whispering aloud

Far, far down at the end of the narrow room, she sat on the small chair, her little feet kicking back and forth, her hair in fancy curls against her puff sleeves.

Oh, you've come for her. You know you have!

Shhh, you'll wake the children! Go away. You're not there!

Everyone knew you would be victorious. They knew you 'd beat the Body Thief. And here you are . . . come for her.

No, not to hurt her. But to lay the decision in her hands.

Monsieur May I help you?

I looked up at the old man standing hi front of me, the doctor, with the stained whiskers and the tiny spectacles. No, not this doctor! Where had he come from I stared at the name tag. This is French Guiana. That's why he's speaking French. And there is no child at the end of the ward, sitting in any chair.

To see Gretchen, I whispered. Sister Marguerite. I had thought she was in this building, that I'd glimpsed her through the windows. I knew she was here.

Dull noises at the far end of the ward. He can't hear them but I can hear them. She's coming. I caught her scent suddenly, mingled with the scent of the children, of the old man.

But even with these eyes, I couldn't see in the intolerable gloom. Where was the light in this place coming from She had just extinguished the tiny electric lamp at the far door, and she came now down the length of the ward past bed after bed, her steps quick though dogged, her head bowed. The doctor made a little weary gesture, and shuffled past me.

Don't stare at the stained whiskers; don't stare at the spectacles, or the rounded hump of his bent back. Why, you saw the plastic name tag on his pocket. He is no ghost! The screen door thumped softly behind him, as he shambled away.

In the thin darkness, she stood. How beautiful her wavy hair, pulled back from her smooth forehead and her large steady eyes. She saw my shoes before she saw me. Sudden awareness of the stranger, the pale soundless figure-not so much as a breath comes from me-in the absolute stillness of the night, where he does not belong.

The doctor had vanished. It seemed the shadows had swallowed him, but surely he was out there somewhere in the dark.

I stood against the light from the office. Her scent was overpowering me-blood and the clean perfume of a living being. God, to see her with this vision-to see the glistening beauty of her cheeks. But I was blocking the light, wasn't I, for the door was very small. Could she see the features of my face clearly enough Could she see the eerie unnatural color of my eyes

Who are you? It was a low, wary whisper. She stood far away from me, stranded in the aisle, looking up at me from beneath her dark knitted brows.

Gretchen, I answered. It's Lestat. I've come as I promised I would come.

Nothing stirred in the long narrow ward. The beds appeared frozen behind their veils of netting. Yet the light moved in the sparkling sacks of fluid, like so many silvery little lamps glimmering in the dull close dark. I could hear the faint, steady respiration of the small sleeping bodies. And a dull rhythmic sound like a child playfully thumping the leg of a chair over and over with the back of her tiny heel.

Slowly, Gretchen raised her right hand and laid her fingers instinctively and protectively against her chest, at the base of her throat. Her pulse quickened. I saw her fingers close as if over a locket, and then I saw the light glinting on the thin little thread of gold chain.

What is that around your neck?

Who are you? she asked again, her whisper scraping bottom, her lips trembling as she spoke. The dim light from the office behind me caught in her eyes. She stared at my face, my hands.

It's me, Gretchen. I won't hurt you. It's the farthest thing from my mind to hurt you. I've come because I promised I would come.

I... I don't believe you. She backed away on the wooden floor, her rubber heels making the softest sound.

Gretchen, don't be frightened of me. I wanted you to know that what I told you was true. I spoke so softly. Could she hear me

I could see her struggling to clear her vision as only seconds ago I had struggled to clear my own. Her heart beat fiercely inside her, breasts moving beautifully beneath the stiff white cotton, the rich blood rising suddenly in her face.

I'm here, Gretchen. I've come to thank you. Here, let me give you this for your mission.

Stupidly, I reached into my pockets; I withdrew the lucre of the Body Thief in thick handfuls and held it out, my fingers trembling as her fingers trembled, the money looking soiled and foolish, like so much rubbish.

Take it, Gretchen. Here. It will help the children. I turned and saw the candle again-that same candle! Why the candle I laid the money down beside it, hearing the boards creak under my weight as I stepped to the little table.

As I turned to look back at her, she came towards me, fearfully, eyes wide.

Who are you? she whispered for the third time. How large her eyes, how dark the pupils, as they danced over me, like ringers drawn to something that would burn them. I'm asking you again to tell me the truth!

Lestat, whom you nursed in your own house, Gretchen. Gretchen, I've recovered my true form. I came because I promised you I would come.

I could scarcely bear it, my old anger kindling as the fear intensified in her, as her shoulders stiffened and her arms came tightly together, and the hand clenching the chain at her neck began to shake.

I don't believe you, she said, in the same strangled whisper, her entire body recoiling though she did not even take a step.

No, Gretchen. Don't look at me in fear or as if you despise me. What have I done to you that you should look at me that way You know my voice. You know what you did for me. I came to thank you-

Liar!

No, that's not true. I came because ... because I wanted to see you again.

Lord God, was I weeping Were my emotions now as volatile as my power And she would see the blood in streaks on my face and it would scare her even more. I could not bear the look in her eyes.

I turned, and stared at the little candle. I struck the wick with my invisible will and saw the flame leap up, a tiny yellow tongue. Mon Dieu, that same play of shadow on the wall. She gasped as she stared at it and back at me, as the illumination spread around us and she saw for the first time very clearly and unmistakably the eyes that were fixed upon her, the hair that framed the face which looked at her, the gleaming fingernails of my hands, the white teeth just visible perhaps behind my parted lips. Gretchen, don't be afraid of me. In the name of truth, look at me. You made me promise I would come. Gretchen, I didn't lie to you. You saved me. I am here, and there is no God, Gretchen, you told me so. From anyone else it wouldn't have mattered, but you said it yourself.

Her hands went to her lips as she drew back, the little chain falling loose so that I saw the gold cross hi the candle's light. Oh, thank God, a cross not a locket! She stepped back again. She could not stop the impulsive motion.

Her words came in a low faltering whisper:

Get away from me, unclean spirit! Get out of this house of God!

I won't hurt you!

Get away from these little ones!

Gretchen. I won't hurt the children.

In the name of God, get away from me ... go. Her right hand groped again for the cross and she held it towards me, her face flushed and her lips wet and loose and trembling in her hysteria, her eyes devoid of reason as she spoke again. I saw it was a crucifix with the tiny twisted body of the dead Christ.

Go out of this house. God Himself protects it. He protects the children. Go.

In the name of truth, Gretchen, I answered, my voice as low as hers, and as full of feeling. I lay with you! I am here.

Liar, she hissed. Liar! Her body was shaking so violently, it seemed she would lose her balance and fall.

No, it's the truth. If nothing else is true, it's true. Gretchen, I won't hurt the children. I won't hurt you.

In another instant, surely, she would lose her reason altogether, helpless screams would break from her, and the whole night would hear her, and every poor soul of the compound would come outdoors to heed her, to take up perhaps the very same cry.

But she remained there, shaking all over, and only dry sobs came suddenly from her open mouth.

Gretchen, I'll go now, I'll leave you if that's what you really want. But I kept my promise to you! Is there nothing more I can do?

A little cry came from one of the beds behind her, and then a moan from another, and she turned her head frantically this way and that.

Then she bolted towards me, and past me through the small office, papers flying off the desk as she brushed past it, the screen door banging behind her as she ran out into the night.

I heard her distant sobbing as, in a daze, I turned around.

I saw the rain falling in a thin soundless mist. I saw her far across the clearing .already and racing towards the chapel doors.

I told you you would hurt her. I turned back and looked down the shadowy length of the ward.

You're not there. I'm done with you! I whispered. The light of the candle showed her clearly now even though she remained at the far end of the room. She was swinging her white-stockinged leg still, heel of her black slipper striking the leg of the chair.

Go away, I said as gently as I could. It's over. The tears were running down my face, blood tears. Had Gretchen seen them

Go away, I said again. It's finished and I'm going too. It seemed she smiled, but she did not smile. Her face became the picture of all innocence, the face of the dream locket. And in the stillness, as I stood transfixed, looking at her, the entire image remained but ceased altogether to move. Then it dissolved.

I saw only an empty chair.

Slowly I turned back to the door. I wiped at my tears again, hating them, and put the handkerchief away.

Flies buzzed against the screen of the door. How clear the rain was, pelting the earth now. There came that soft swelling sound as the rain came down harder, as if the sky had slowly opened its mouth and sighed. Something forgotten. What was it The candle, ah, blow out the candle, lest a fire start and hurt these tender little ones!

And look at the far end-the little blond child in the oxygen tent, the sheet of crinkled plastic flashing as if made up of bits and pieces of light. How could you have been so foolish as to make a flame in this room

I put out the light with a pinch of my fingers. I emptied all my pockets. I laid down all the soiled and curling bills, hundreds upon hundreds of dollars, and the few coins I found as well.

And then I went out, and I walked slowly past the chapel with its open doors. Through the gentle downpour, I heard her praying, her low rapid whispers, and then through the open entrance, I saw her kneeling before the altar, the reddened fire of a candle flickering beyond her, as she held her arms outstretched in the form of a cross.

I wanted to go. It seemed in the depths of my bruised soul I wanted nothing more. But something again held me. I had smelled the sharp unmistakable scent of fresh blood.

It came from the chapel, and it was not the blood pumping within her, it was blood that was flowing free from a new wound.

I drew closer, careful not to make the slightest noise, until I stood in the chapel door. The smell grew stronger. And then I saw the blood dripping from her outstretched hands. I saw it on the floor, flowing in rivulets from her feet.

Deliver me from Evil, O Lord, take me to you, Sacred Heart of Jesus, gather me into your arms . . .

She did not see or hear me as I drew closer. A soft glow suffused her face, made of the light of the flickering candle, and of the radiance from inside her, the great consuming rapture which held her now, and removed her from all around her, including the dark figure at her side.

I looked at the altar. I saw the giant crucifix high above it, and below, the tiny gleaming tabernacle, and the burning candle deep in its red glass which meant the Blessed Sacrament was there. A gust of breeze moved through the open chapel doors. It caught the bell above and a faint tinny peal broke from it, barely audible above the sound of the breeze itself.

I looked down at her again, at her upturned face with its blind eyes at half mast, and her mouth so slack though the words still came from it.

Christ, my beloved Christ, gather me into your arms.

And through the haze of my tears, I watched the red blood welling and flowing red and thick and copious from her open palms.

There were hushed voices in the compound. Doors opened and closed. I heard the sound of people running on the packed earth. When I turned I saw that dark shapes had gathered at the entrance-a cluster of anxious female figures. I heard a whispered word in French which meant stranger. And then the muffled cry:

Devil!

Down the aisle I went, right towards them, forcing them perhaps to scatter, though I never touched them or looked at them, and hurried past them and out into the rain.

Then I turned and looked back. I saw her kneeling still, as they gathered around her, and I heard their soft reverent cries of Miracle! and Stigmata! They were making the Sign of the Cross and dropping to their knees around her, as the prayers continued to fall in that dull trancelike voice from her lips.

And the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh.

Good-bye, Gretchen, I whispered.

And then I was gone, free and alone, into the warm embrace of savage night.