Uttuku

The Books of Darkness

by Robert N. Stephenson

Chapter 11

part 1 of 2

My eyeballs ached and my temples throbbed. I hadn’t slept well and the painkillers weren’t living up to the TV claims. I had awoken with pounding behind my eyes after a night in which Steven wouldn’t let me alone: he had sat, luminescent like a projected hologram, on the Hepplewhite chair at the foot of my bed.

When, having decided enough was enough, I’d risen and kicked the chair out from under him, he still sat there, suspended in space, with that reproachful look in his dark eyes. A double scotch and two sleeping tablets brought sleep.

In the morning Steven was gone and I had broken one leg of a three-thousand dollar antique chair. Steven said no more than usual in his ghostly form, just knowing he was watching was enough to keep me on edge.

Again he wanted me to follow and again I couldn’t. Despite Sarina’s assurances the risk of something happening was just too great. Real fear, fear I hadn’t ever experienced since I was ten held me tight.

I took my medication, showered and dressed, then headed out for the day. For a change I had somewhere to go, someone to see.

My knock was answered by the clicking of locks and rasping of bolts. Sarina wore a black tracksuit like the one I’d worn on that first morning. Her feet were bare, toenails black, and her hair tied back from her face. Despite my shell-shocked nerves, she looked beautiful.

I took my place at the kitchen table, this time I’d brought my laptop and would write straight into the book file. My handwriting was shoddy and getting worse. My shaking hands would create a few typos, but at least I’d be able to know what the words were meant to be.

“Why do you want me to follow Steven?” I asked, as she joined me.

“The book first, then we talk about Orlando and what he wants.” She sounded definite.

I sat back in the chair, I wasn’t sure I could concentrate enough to write down emotional experiences. I had plenty of doubts and paranoia to frazzle any woman. Rubbing at my face I realised I hadn’t put any makeup on, my skin felt dry.

“Come to bed, it will relax you, and settle your mind, then we can work.” She stood and helped me up. “You need to trust me, Diana.”

Right now I didn’t trust anything. I was drinking heavily, eating little and sleeping even less. I didn’t feel like sex. Sarina’s hand on my face radiated a comforting warmth. I just wanted to be held, told everything was going to be okay.

“Trust me.”

Sarina took my hand and led me into the bedroom. I let her remove my jeans, jacket and heavy shirt. Standing before her in my underwear I just felt tired and very unsexy. She removed her track suit, she wore no underwear, then kissed me. I resisted at first, but the touch was so soft, fresh, I gave into it. My tension seemed to flow from my body and into her. She kissed my shoulder.

“Please don’t.” My floral undies looked wrong against the black. I felt wrong.

She touched my cheek, finger tip cool. I lay on the bed, letting the cotton sheet welcome me. Sarina lay next to me. Pressed into me. I didn’t want sex, things weren’t right, my head couldn’t just switch off everything for pleasure.

“I can’t.” I rolled onto my side, back towards her

She pressed into my back, right arm wrapped around me. She squeezed. I stared at the wall, the picture of Bela Lugosi looked back.

“I need to take from you, Diana,” Sarina said into my hair. Her breath was warm on my neck.

I knew what she meant, but I didn’t want her to do that either. I closed my eyes and snuggled back into her, the press of her skin welcoming.

“I only need a few sips of your blood every few days, a bit of life light, a bit of energy to keep me away from the darkness.” She stroked my shoulder, the soft scent of sandalwood in the air. “That’s all, it will ease away your tension.”

“Why? You already said we weren’t a vampire?”

“I need your light, it is how I live. I need it.” A touch of desperation in her voice.

“Tell me why.” I had to know more before I’d let her bite me again. “But keep holding me. I like it.” She gripped me tighter, one leg wrapped over mine.

“I take a piece of people’s life light to sustain me. Your blood, the small quantity I need, carries this light. Diana, I no longer have a life light of my own. I take from others in order to get what I don’t have.” It wasn’t a great explanation but it was enough.

“I won’t turn into what you are?” Sarina didn’t laugh. She kissed my shoulder again.

“No, you will not be changed.”

I raised my arm. I didn’t care. The world was already screwed up. What was one more strange event in the mess of the last two weeks. Sarina shifted position, gently rolling over me to lay in front. Her svelte form making me feel old. Tired and old. She took my right wrist. I watched, almost disconnected from the scene. I didn’t feel her bite. A euphoric high flooded my mind. I gasped.

I looked at my wrist. A black bandage covered the wound I knew would vanish, or would have already vanished. I must have slept. Sarina was gone. Again a black tracksuit lay on the end of the bed. I felt refreshed, the anxiety and tension gone. Dressing, I thought about having to go home to face Steven. The thought didn’t hold long, this moment was what I wanted, and it felt good.

I found Sarina in the kitchen typing on my computer. A glass of dark liquid on the table to her right. Was it blood? Did blood look black?

“It’s Pepsi,” she said, answering my frown.

“How long was I out?”

“Five or so hours. How do you feel?”

“Better, much better thanks.” I pulled out a chair and sat. I looked at my bandaged wrist and then at her. “What are you doing?”

“Adding some notes for the book. You weren’t up to it.” She turned the computer so I could read.

Reading seemed easier, the words clear on the screen. The notes were a bit fractured, but I did understand most of what she had entered. Bela and she had moved to the U.S. in 1920; that much added up; he became a U.S. citizen in 1931 and she, a citizen in 1922, though her citizenship came through other means suggested, yet undisclosed. Sarina had launched into a gushing page of prose on Bela’s second wife Lillian Arch. She obviously liked this woman. I scanned the rest of the names. The others received light touches, nothing noteworthy.

“How many times did you say Bela was married?” I looked at the file and made a new text document for my own notes. I knew from the Internet, but she had to tell me.

“Five, though Lillian was the nicest,” she said. “Beatrice was a bitch — well, I thought she was anyway — that lasted only a month. Lillian was the only one to stick by him. She had his only child, a son, Bela George Lugosi junior. I liked the name.” Sarina had that brightness in her eyes again. These were good memories. “I think she was also the only one who knew what a great actor Bela had been. How Hollywood had destroyed him.”

“You met his wives?”

“Not directly, but I did have a brief conversation with the second, Ilona; she actually made Bela laugh and I liked to see him laugh.” Sarina folded her hands on the table before her, trying to stay composed. “Lillian made him happy. Happier than I think a life with me would have been.”

“You wanted him to love you, though?” I paused with my fingers over keys. “If he had, his life would have surely been different, better even.”

Sarina shook her head. “No, his life had already been set, I couldn’t have changed it even if I wanted to.”

I moved away from the wives, this was her story, not theirs. I read a few more pages, skimming the text. All emotional and personal, but little actually about the man.

“You don’t mention much about his acting career.” I thought some of this needed to be in the book. “You’ve given me plenty about your friendship, the secret meetings, your unrequited love. If I’m going to do this properly I need a bit more.” The rest had given me the energy to write. Had Sarina known this? I didn’t let her know I already had a research file. She had to tell me in her own words. I had to believe who she said she was..

“Bela was already famous in Hungary and Germany; he was a wonderful actor. He was making films almost every month. He also did Shakespeare, you know. His classical training made him a star.” It became obvious the memories weren’t just a recount of events. “I was getting noticed more. I told him I’d have to leave Germany, go to the U.S.,” she said, her smile infectious. “He left his career and emigrated to the U.S. so he could continue our friendship, said I made him feel lucky. Well, that luck didn’t take effect until much later.”

“He didn’t act when he arrived?”

“He did after a few years, he started on stage again doing Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” She tugged absently at her sleeve. “Before then he wallowed in misery, and I couldn’t do a thing to help.”

“What kind of misery?” I knew the movies didn’t start until 1931; he’d moved to America in the 1920s. The story needed more facts, her facts. I could do the emotional stuff easily enough. I also needed to know more about her, and this seemed to be a good way to go about it without being pushy.

“He worked as a labourer for a time.” Sadness in her voice. “He hated the work and I hated how it made him feel. After one of his back-breaking days I encouraged him to return to the stage.” She looked down on the table for a moment, before speaking again. “He loved the stage, he loved working with a live audience.

“I gave him a local news article on a small production company. He began theatre work with the Hungarian-American community.” She looked pleased. “The Bela I knew back in Germany was back, happier than ever. You know, he played Dracula on Broadway for three years. I was at every performance, always backstage and away from the lights; sometimes I even worked as a stagehand just to see him perform.”

“So the movies weren’t the first time he played a vampire?” I’d only ever known the movies.

“Oh no, he only got into Hollywood movies later.” She brightened. “Rumour today says he only got the part because Lon Chaney died.” I made a note of the name, I’d look it up later. “Lon couldn’t do it even if he wanted to; his contracts wouldn’t let him. Bela got it in his own right. I’m proud of that, even if others have doubts.”

“That was in 1931?”

“Yes, two years before he married Lillian.” Sarina continued. “He worked hard. The night he got the go-ahead we spent the evening drinking. I simply loved the script, and I had to teach him how to say some of the words; his English wasn’t the best, you know. It was okay on stage, but films, that was different.”

Sarina became animated. “The director, I can’t remember his name, loved his accent, the awkward English, so it wasn’t a problem. Now, the director was the last-minute choice on the film, not Bela.” She gushed. The hard face always vanished when she spoke about him.

I found I liked the happiness in Sarina’s voice, her whole manner changed when talking about Bela Lugosi. In a small way I felt jealous that someone could affect her so much. I had never had anyone in my life that I could remember so affectionately.

Sarina seemed to drift away for a moment and her eyes dulled, the smile faded. A darkness fell across her features and the joy of minutes before was replaced by the cool, measured woman I usually saw. My heart sank. I wanted to hold her, give her the same comfort she’d given me. I didn’t know what she was thinking or how I could help. Again I had been found wanting for words.

I brought to mind some of my research. “Did you ever meet Boris Karloff?” He’d worked with Bela.

“Who, that asshole?” I was startled. “Sorry, it was something Bela once said. It has stuck with me ever since. And no, I didn’t actually meet Boris. He wasn’t the actor Bela was.”

“He didn’t like Karloff?”

“They were friends once, but Bela hated gays. When he found our Boris’ leanings, things changed between them. I never told Bela about my liking for women.”

“I think that’s enough for now. This is plenty to make a start on.” I shut down the computer.

“Are you doing anything tonight?”

“Only another encounter with Steven.”

“Let’s go to a party.” Sarina brightened, her whole manner light.

“Where? I haven’t anything to change into. I haven’t any makeup.” I didn’t want to go home, I didn’t feel prepared for a party either.

“I have everything you need; you go shower and I’ll get the clothes.” The changes in her mood was startling. I decided not to follow the Karloff line in the book.

“What type of party?” I called from the bathroom.

Sarina laughed. “Goth, of course, what other kind is there?”

Did she go to the Goth Club as well? What would the club think when I turned up with this stunning woman in tow? Or was this a private party? Nervousness churned in my gut.

Proceed to part 2...

This link goes to the book website.