The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Part 7 - Fear of So Many Things

On the flight back to the United States, Escha became increasingly agitated. As the flight neared its termination, he began to fuss with his hair and to touch his nose with the back of his hand. Before the flight, he had spent an interminable amount of time --nearly the entirety of the wait on the terminal-- arguing on the phone with someone I didn't know named "D". I didn't listen to that conversation because I found myself concerned with Nonus, who since the car had seemed determined to faint. He achieved it at around 15,000 feet, insensible until landing shocked him back into the world of the living. As always, we took advantage of the animosity of strangers in public, and spoke to each other only Italian so that even if we were out of the norm, we would not be addressed. I believe that Escha felt alienated by it, because he did not know the language, so that when we landed, for this and other reasons, an uncomfortable distance had grown between us.

After landing, he brusquely asked me if I could drive, and when I hesitated, he tossed his hair like a nervous horse and volunteered himself. One knows not to bother nervous horses, but rather soothe them with the words to which they are accustomed. "Oh yes, well you are certainly the best among us," I murmured. 

"I know that you think me vain," he murmured back, fumbling with rented keys. "But you are mean, and can't deny it. You've acid for those not in your mold, man or otherwise."

"So Faya says we are the same in that way," I said, "contemptuous of those outside our circles." 

"Oh no," he rejoined, "you say that but know that I am contemptuous of those inside mine as well." He checked the mirrors over his sunglasses. "In fact I hate them. I would be only with those who do not desire me. I am disgusted with him who would kiss the hem of my robe for a kind word. If he wants me, he has bad judgment. Most would say so! Is that my flaw? A man who fawns over me reveals himself as dangerously stupid. In fact I want for you to want me very much. You are not so easily fooled."

"If you hate them, destroy them. You have the means." The passenger window had quickly warmed by my face with the door shut, and I leaned towards him ever so slightly. The movement did not escape his notice, and however he read it, he softened.

"You see, you are the cruelest," he said, more gently. A hint of a joke, of appeal, came into his tone. "Surely you will know I cannot because pure hatred can only fester between beloved. You can't hate one you do not know as you know yourself."

"Do you wish to destroy yourself?" I asked him, but then the backdoor opened, and Nonus slipped inside, holding a piece of guarantor's blue copy paper regarding the delivery of the casket. Iovita followed closely, so that Nonus could not change his mind and flee.

Escha turned the key then, sharing not so much as a look with me.

"Escha?" I asked him.

The most striking thing about him as a child had been the sense about him that he was completely free. If held, his head was always lolling about on his neck to see things from all angles, and if he wanted to kiss or lick my skin he did. He was always jumping about and climbing trees, as if his body did not encumber him at all. His emotions were his own, and he wallowed in them luxuriously. Notably, however, even then he slept like the dead. Once he fell asleep, he never moved. He barely breathed. 

I suspect that he was more intelligent at that age than he ever let on. I suspect that by the time I met him, he had already molded himself into what he perceived Faya wanted out of him. Certainly, aspects of his natural character were left in him even so, but the way he slept has led me to believe he had an instinct for pleasing those he admired unconsciously. Whether he knew it or not, and it seemed he did know it at times, he had changed himself for his master. His bubbliness and vanity, though I find it difficult to envisage him without them when I am bitter, I fully believe were early and permanent adaptations. They are two qualities Faya absolutely likes in a precious object, and Escha certainly knew that, as I know it. I do not know how deeply those two traits went in Escha, or if he knew himself, but I have as often witnessed him in deep counsel with himself. Sensitive and secretive, and in conversation about his life, reasoning with himself. That is how he looked on the long drive. This look gave him a haunted and faraway character, a sense that he was seeing through his eyes from vantage very deeply in his mind.