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You're in your dotage already. Make your will.
Oooh, so cruel, he said with his bright smile.
I was going to say something else to him, when I was distracted. There was a little pulling somewhere in my consciousness. Sounds. A car passing very slowly on the narrow road through the distant village, in a blinding snow.
I scanned, caught nothing, merely the snow falling, and the car edging its way along. Poor sad mortal to be driving through the country at this hour. It was four of the clock.
It's very late, I said. I have to leave now. I don't want to spend another night here, though you've been most kind. It's nothing to do with anyone knowing. I simply prefer . . .
I understand. When will I see you again?
Perhaps sooner than you think, I said. David, tell me. The other night, when I left here, hell-bent on burning myself to a crisp in the Gobi, why did you say that I was your only friend?
You are.
We sat there in silence for a moment.
You are my only friend as well, David, I said.
Where are you going?
I don't know. Back to London, perhaps. I'll tell you when I go back across the Atlantic. Is that all right?
Yes, do tell me. Don't . . . don't ever believe that I don't want to see you, don't ever abandon me again.
If I thought I was good for you, if I thought your leaving the order and traveling again was good for you . . .
Oh, but it is. I don't belong anymore in the Talamasca. I'm not even sure I trust it any longer, or believe hi its aims.
I wanted to say more-to tell him how much I loved him, that I'd sought shelter under his roof and he'd protected me and that I would never forget this, and that I would do anything he wished of me, anything at all.
But it seemed pointless to say so. I don't know whether he would have believed it, or what the value would have been. I was still convinced that it was not good for him to see me. And there wasn't very much left to him in this life.
I know all this, he said quietly, gracing me with that smile again.
David, I said, the report you made of your adventures in Brazil. Is there a copy here Could I read this report?
He stood up and went to the glass-doored bookshelf nearest his desk- He looked through the many materials there for a long moment, then removed two large leather folders from the shelf.
This is my life in Brazil-what I wrote in the jungles after, on a little rattletrap portable typewriter at a camp table, before I came home to England. I did go after the jaguar, of course. Had to do it. But the hunt was nothing compared to my experiences in Rio, absolutely nothing. That was the turning point, you see. I believe the very writing of this was some desperate attempt to become an Englishman again, to distance myself from the Candomble people, from the life I'd been living with them. My report for the Talamasca was based upon the material here.
I took it from him gratefully.
And this, he said, holding the other folder, is a brief summary of my days in India and Africa.
I would like to read that too.
Old hunting stories mostly. I was young when I wrote this. It's all big guns and action! It was before the war.
I took this second folder as well. I stood up, in slow gentlemanly fashion.
I've talked the night away, he said suddenly. That was rude of me. Perhaps you had things to say.
No, not at all. It was exactly what
I wanted. I offered my hand and he took it. Amazing the sensation of his touch against the burnt flesh.
Lestat, he said, the little short story here. . . the Lovecraft piece. Do you want it back, or shall I save it for you?
