At last the doctor was finished with his poking and prodding and listening, and went away to confer with her. Curse my mortal hearing. But I knew I was almost cured. And when he stood over me again, and told me I would now be "fine" and needed only a few more days' rest, I said quietly that it was Gretchen's nursing which had done it.
To this he gave an emphatic nod and a series of unintelligible murmurs, and then off he went into the snow, his car making a faint grinding noise outside as he passed through the driveway.
I felt so clearheaded and good that I wanted to cry. Instead I drank some more of the delicious orange juice, and I began to think of things . . . remember things.
"I need to leave you for only a little while," Gretchen said. "I have to get some food."
"Yes, and I shall pay for this food," I said. I laid my hand on her wrist. Though my voice was still weak and hoarse, I told her about the hotel, that my money was there in my coat. It was enough money for me to pay her for my care as well as for the food, and she must get it. The key must be in my clothes, I explained.
She had put my clothes on hangers, and now she did find the key in the shirt pocket.
"See?" I said with a little laugh. "I have been telling you the truth about everything."
She smiled, and her face was filled with warmth. She said she would go to the hotel and get my money for me, if I would agree to lie quiet. It wasn't such a good idea to leave money lying about, even in a fine hotel.
I wanted to answer, but I was so sleepy. Then, through the little window, I saw her walking through the snow, towards the little car. I saw her climb inside. What a strong figure she was, very sturdy of limb, but with fair skin and a softness to her that made her lovely to behold and most embraceable. I was frightened, however, on account of her leaving me.
When I opened my eyes again, she was standing there with my overcoat over her arm. Lots of money, she said. She'd brought it all back. She'd never seen so much money in packets and wads. What a strange person I was. There was something like twenty-eight thousand dollars there. She'd closed out my account at the hotel. They'd been worried about me. They had seen me run off in the snow. They had made her sign a receipt for everything. This bit of paper she gave to me, as if it was important. She had my other possessions with her, the clothing I had purchased, which was still in its sacks and boxes.
I wanted to thank her. But where were the words? I would thank her when I came back to her in my own body.
After she had put away all the clothing, she fixed us a simple supper of broth again and bread with butter. We ate this together, with a bottle of wine, of which I drank much more than she thought permissible. I must say that this bread and butter and wine was about the best human food I'd tasted so far. I told her so. And I wanted more of the wine, please, because this drunkenness was absolutely sublime.
"Why did you bring me here?" I asked her.
She sat down on the side of the bed, looking towards the fire, playing with her hair, not looking at me. She started to explain again about the overcrowding at the hospital, the epidemic.
"No, why did you do it? There were others there."
"Because you're not like anyone I've ever known," she said.
"You make me think of a story I once read... about an angel forced to come down to earth in a human body."
With a flush of pain, I thought of Raglan James telling me that I looked like an angel. I thought of my other body roaming the world, powerful and under his loathsome charge.
She gave a sigh as she looked at me. She was puzzled.
"When this is finished, I'll come back to you in my real body," I said. "I'll reveal myself to you. It may mean something to you to know that you were not deceived; and you are so strong, I suspect the truth won't hurt you."
"The truth?"
I explained that often when we revealed ourselves to mortals we drove them mad-for we were unnatural beings, and yet we did not know anything about the existence of God or the Devil. In sum, we were like a religious vision without revelation. A mystic experience, but without a core of truth.
She was obviously enthralled. A subtle light came into her eyes. She asked me to explain how I appeared in the other form.
I described to her how I had been made a vampire at the age of twenty. I'd been tall for those times, blond, with light-colored eyes. I told her again about burning my skin in the Gobi. I feared the Body Thief intended to keep my body for good, that he was probably off someplace, hidden from the rest of the tribe, trying to perfect his use of my powers.
She asked me to describe flying to her.
"It's more like floating, simply rising at will-propelling yourself hi this direction or that by decision. It's a defiance of gravity quite unlike the flight of natural creatures. It's frightening. It's the most frightening of all our powers; and I think it hurts us more than any other power; it fills us with despair. It is the final proof that we aren't human. We fear perhaps we will one night leave the earth and never touch it again."
I thought of the Body Thief using this power. I had seen him use it.
"I don't know how I could have been so foolish as to let him take a body as strong as mine," I said. "I was blinded by the desire to be human."
She was merely looking at me. Her hands were clasped in front of her and she was looking at me steadily and calmly with large hazel eyes.
"Do you believe in God?" I asked. I pointed to the crucifix on the wall, "Do you believe hi these Catholic philosophers whose books are on the shelf?"
She thought for a long moment. "Not in the way you ask," she said.
I smiled. "How then?"
"My life has been one of self-sacrifice ever since I can remember. That is what I believe in. I believe that I must do everything I can to lessen misery. That is all I can do, and that is something enormous. It is a great power, like your power of flight."
I was mystified. I realized that I did not think of the work of a nurse as having to do with power. But I saw her point completely.
"To try to know God," she said, "this can be construed as a sin of pride, or a failure of imagination. But all of us know misery when we see it. We know sickness; hunger; deprivation. I try to lessen these things. It's the bulwark of my faith. But to answer you truly-yes, I do believe hi God and in Christ. So do you."
"No, I don't," I said.
"When you were feverish you did. You spoke of God and the Devil the way I've never heard anyone else speak of them."
"I spoke of tiresome theological arguments," I said.
"No, you spoke of the irrelevance of them."
"You think so?"
"Yes. You know good when you see it. You said you did. So do 1.1 devote my life to trying to do it."
I sighed. "Yes, I see," I said. "Would I have died had you left me in the hospital?"
"You might have," she said. "I honestly don't know."
It was very pleasurable merely to look at her. Her face was large with few contours and nothing of elegant aristocratic beauty. But beauty she had in abundance. And the years had been gentle with her. She was not worn from care.
I sensed a tender brooding sensuality hi her, a sensuality which she herself did not trust or nurture.
"Explain this to me again," she said. "You spoke of being a rock singer because you wanted to do good? You wanted to be good by being a symbol of evil? Talk of this some more."
I told her yes. I told her how I had done it, gathering the little band, Satan's Night Out, and making them professionals. I told her that I had failed; there had been a war among our kind, I myself had been taken away by force, and the entire debacle had happened without a rupture in the rational fabric of the mortal world. I had been forced back into invisibility and irrelevance.