Chapter 3 Idylls of the King
Abby loved it that people gossiped about her. It meant she could join her fellow hotel guests for dinner and receive no unpleasant questions about her family, her illness, or her refusal to eat. Instead she could relax and enjoy the marvel that was her sister.
"The Holy Grail," Constance explained to Abby and ten other listeners. "According to Tennyson's idyll, if a man can touch or see the grail, he will be healed at once. That is the assertion, at any rate. Note that you don't have to possess it or drink from it. And the distinction between touching and seeing is interesting, too. A blind man can't see, but he can touch, yes? So presumably you can touch it in a lightless cave, and still be healed.
"But a couple pages later there's no more talk of touching. Percivale's sister beholds the grail, and she tells her brother that he and his fellow knights should endeavor to see the vision also, that all the world might be healed. That's why I'm assuming Tennyson has something allegorical in mind. Otherwise how is the whole world supposed to be healed if it's just the knights of the Round Table that see the grail?
"The grail eventually appears to them at Camelot, but it's covered in luminous cloud, so I guess they see it without actually seeing it. It doesn't seem to count as real seeing anyway, because they all vow to go on a quest to see it for real. And I really am struck by the specifics of the vow. Not a quest to obtain, or drink from, or even touch. Just a quest to see. And they don't even care about the alleged healing benefits. They're knights. Quests are what knights do. Or so they think."
Abby tried to pay attention, but Malory's version of the story kept distracting her. She imagined "the cracking and crying of thunder" transpiring right here in the Kimball House dining hall, accompanied by "a sunbeam more clearer seven times than ever they saw day." The Holy Grail entered, covered with white samite. And it magically gave every guest such meats and drinks as he or she best loved in this world. Abby wondered if the grail would grant her a chalice of fresh Indian blood, or if it would invoke the impossible: human food a vampire could actually chew and swallow and keep in her stomach.
People began leaving the table. Had Constance finished? Abby felt embarrassed, but hadn't Malory already told the tale? What was the point of retelling it?
Abby got up and followed the group into the parlor. It was getting a little bit easier each night, this bold entrance into a crowded room. Townsfolk were swelling their numbers, Edward among them. Most drank Coca-Cola from the hotel's new soda fountain. We fought for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, Abby thought, and we got it: brain tonic for every man.
She settled onto a plush couch, closed her eyes, and listened to the banter: political fights between wets and dries, fluctuating cotton prices, the hopeful opening of Georgia School of Technology next fall, the installation of electric lighting in New York. A random female voice commented, "Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent, for beauty is a witch against whose charms faith melteth in blood."
"Much Ado About Nothing, Act 2 Scene 1," Abby called out in her stage voice. She glanced about like she had awakened in a strange place, a bit mystified that she had injected herself into the conversation.
Five or six people had heard her, and they, too, were surprised that she had spoken. A young man gave her a quizzical look, then offered, "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on."
"Othello, Act 3, Scene 3," Abby replied, standing that she might project properly. "My salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood, to say as I said then!"
It took the room a moment to realize Abby was daring them to oppose her. Then they took up the challenge, correctly guessing Antony & Cleopatra Act 1. But they couldn't get the scene, compelling Edward to pronounce, "I would say that's Miss Abigail, three, Kimball House, nothing."
Someone called out, "Prodigious birth of love it is to me that I must love a loathed enemy."
"Romeo & Juliet," Abby said, "Act 1, Scene 5. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
They knew this line came from Act 5 of Macbeth, but couldn't get the scene, so again the point went to Abby. The game went on for a quarter of an hour, Shakespeare quotes flying across the parlor like cannon balls: We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come unbutton here.
The fourteen adults got many of them right. They were a literary crowd, after all, plus they had Constance. But gradually they realized they had no hope of beating Abby. Eventually a young woman offered, "How pregnant sometimes his replies are! A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of." Instead of identifying the quote, Abby switched into Ophelia:
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
And, O, what Abby had seen! Noble minds overthrown, yes, but much more: plunderings of invaders and savages; plagues of smallpox, yellow fever, consumption; America shooting the flower of France, Britain, Mexico, herself; droughts, floods, fires, mining accidents; childbirth, merciless slayer of so many young mothers. And lurking in the shadows of all these miseries, the vampire herself: nibbling edges, picking remains, gleaning the refuse of hell.
Abby hadn't chosen to be a vampire. Her victims didn't care, of course. Why should they? It mattered to Abby, though. She had not chosen darkness as her portion, though the same could not be said of everyone. She commenced Lady Macbeth's invocation:
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'
In her blackest moments Abby craved such reduction to blind, sexless substance. Eyes too palled to weep over the murders she ministered. Blood too thick to worry the stinking, undead flesh through which it crawled. But though the spirits had stolen Abby's milk, they had not replaced it with gall. The vampire's core desire remained intact: feel womb and bosom swell, deliver a live child, suckle her newborn at a joyous breast.
One day. She had been a woman one day when her uncle had ruined those dreams. Now Abby would never be bought, or possessed, or enjoyed. And even if a boy came to love her, what could she offer him? A hopeless consummation, nothing more. Yet her soul ached for the impossible, a gentle lover who would play for her stolen maidenhood and make her feel like she could see the sun. She took up Juliet's lines:
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,
Think true love acted simple modesty.
Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Abby froze when finished, just as the riverboat troupe had trained her so many years ago. It was only then she noticed the crowd: eighty people crammed into the parlor, even more observing from the hallway. How long had she been performing? How many speeches had she acted? The audience was crying, blinking, shaking their heads. Then the applause began: deep, shoulder-shaking waves of approbation that set the room spinning. Abby bowed with a quick smile and made to escape.
Before she vanished, however, she heard a beaming Constance turn to Edward and declare: "That's my sister. Told you she was smarter."
***
It was almost five o'clock in the morning when Abby approached Kimball House, a case of gin in her arms and a smile on her face. For six weeks she had been transporting product purchased by Edward. Tonight, however, she had finally pushed through her own deal, using her own money. Edward would have to do more than simply accept delivery. This was Abby's gin. Edward was going to have to pay for it.
Abby began opening the hotel's side entrance, but a hand seized the door and stopped it in her face. Mr. Hugh Inman loomed out of the shadows. This was the one man in Atlanta Abby had been avoiding, and now that she was meeting him she understood why. The confidence of his bearing, his seeming ability to surprise a vampire - it made Abby wish she were wearing more clothing.
Mr. Inman waited, studying Abby's eyes. People who met her in the dark normally grew uneasy. This man should be getting fidgety as his survival instinct urged him to flee. He remained quite calm, however. And what did he expect to discover? Abby could see. He could not.
"They say there's a wild animal preying on the shantytown," he commented. "That's smart, only eating Negroes. Think the animal will stay smart?"
Abby nodded.
"I think as long as predators are smart, the advantages of having them around can outweigh the disadvantages. Here, let's get that inside." Mr. Inman led Abby into the lounge kitchen, where she set her merchandise on a counter.
"Your mother is dead," Mr. Inman observed.
"Yes," Abby said.
"Your father is dead."
From the way he said this, Abby could tell he already knew the answer. She reckoned it would be folly to lie. "Yes," she replied.
"Would your sister make a suitable spouse to my son?"
"No."
"Would your sister make a suitable spouse to anybody?"
"No."
"How much for the case?" he asked.
It took Abby a moment to process the change in subject. She had planned on selling to Edward. Edward's father, however, was the richest man in Georgia. He might offer more.
"Fifty dollars," Abby said, a bit embarrassed at suggesting such a starting price. But that's what bargaining was all about.
Mr. Inman withdrew from his wallet a fifty dollar national gold bank note, a form of currency Abby had never seen, and handed it to the vampire. Abby took the money, thoroughly flummoxed. Next time, she thought, I'm asking for a hundred.
"I also got you this," Inman added, withdrawing a small package and handing it to Abby. Then he started pulling bottles from the case. "Gin?" he asked. "That's good. We've been out for weeks."
Abby retired to the stairwell and opened her present. It was a bottle of perfume. Did her body really smell, then? Or had Mr. Inman simply heard of her hysterical fit? He certainly seemed to know plenty about Constance, despite having never met her.
Abby considered leaving. But she couldn't take Constance away from the soda fountain. And although Edward's father had no interest in seeing his son married off to one of the Wilson sisters, he clearly intended the girls no harm, either. Abby just had to get Constance to back off.
***
Why was the stupid, glowy, floaty thing called a grail, anyway? Why not just call it the vain, useless artifact that skids down a sunbeam and ruins everybody's lives? Abby imagined visiting King Arthur's court, inventing baseball, and knocking the blasted grail back where it came from.
It was three in the morning. Abby had been laboring in Tennyson since midnight. No doubt this would make Constance very happy. The vampire, however, couldn't get Malory out of her head. The story of Arthur had already been told. Why was Tennyson retelling it?
Abby's remake frustration had put her in such a foul mood, she was beginning to criticize the entire grail myth. If the grail could heal, why did no one care, and why was no one healed? Why could the grail only appear when everything in the kingdom was going well? So there was something for it to mess up? Why did Arthur's knights seek the grail in the first place? What benefit did they hope to gain? It seemed the only people allowed to see the grail were those who didn't need to. And it wasn't like there were any women in the story. How could people even call it a romance?
That evening Abby expressed her annoyance in the parlor. "I like Malory better than Tennyson," she confessed. "Why did Tennyson even bother?"
It was an average-sized group that listened to Abby's query: Constance and Edward, plus four men and six women, some guests, some Atlanta residents.
"Malory's English is dated," a young lady commented.
"There are modernized versions," Abby countered.
"Tennyson does change the story," Edward noted. "Arthur's absence when the grail appears is a pretty major alteration."
"Exactly," Abby said. "Why does he have to change it? Why can't he just leave it the way it is?"
"I'm curious," a man offered. "I've only heard such comments from older readers."
Constance interrupted. "Abby's an old soul. Reading since she was three, plus year's of stage work. We all have our favorite versions, don't we?"
"But that's the point," another man said. "Our stories are versions."
"I don't understand," Abby admitted.
A woman came and sat beside Abby. "Malory wasn't the first to write the story of Arthur. Robert de Boron and Chretien de Troyes composed versions of the grail saga centuries before Malory was born. He based his work on earlier writings like these. And there were probably generations of oral tradition before Malory's sources were recorded. So no one knows who came up with the grail story first. Maybe there really was a King Arthur."
"None of Shakespeare's plays are original," Edward added. "He just reworked other people's material. Julius Caesar from Plutarch, King Lear from Geoffrey of Monmouth. That sort of thing."
Abby grew quiet. The conversation moved on to other topics. She felt thoroughly embarrassed, as though everyone else in the world knew this idea of "sources," and why didn't she? So many Shakespeare plays she had performed. She had always thought Shakespeare had created his stories himself. Why should she think otherwise? None of the actors on the riverboat had ever mentioned sources. None of them had cared.
Malory was a remake, just like Tennyson. What if everything was a remake? What if there were no new stories, and the stories she thought were new only struck her that way because she hadn't read enough yet? What if the day was coming when she knew every story? It made horrible, bitter sense. Grass, seasons, presidents, generations - everything succumbed to a cycle of vain, monotonous futility. Why should literature be any different? There was nothing new under the sun.
Except wasn't this gathering new? Abby had asked an intelligent question, and five men had treated her with intellectual respect. When or where had she ever experienced the like? Men looked down on women, dismissed them, ignored them. Not these men, though. These men took her and Constance seriously. Abby wondered if this was really new, though, or if the "New City" of Atlanta was also just a remake of some community from an earlier time and place.
Abby listened to the group discussion for a bit, delighting in her improved ability to follow along. When she and Constance had come to Atlanta three months ago, Abby's attention wandered so frequently that people assumed something was wrong with her. It was the constant urge to hide; that was what people didn't understand. How could a vampire focus on social interaction while crippled by fear, distraction, and the need to go unnoticed.
That was the beauty of Constance's strategy: hide in plain sight. A person actually attracted less attention by socializing than by cowering in a closet, and it was more fun, too. Abby had tried a version of this strategy on the steamboat, but that had been a long time ago. Plus Constance knew just how to keep people from zeroing in on Abby. Constance could even distract Edward. Especially Edward.
Constance's voice rose. "Susie says no blasted ecstasy can blow memory from expectancy."
Abby shot a quick glance at Edward. The grimace on his face told Abby he had heard the name "Susie" before, knew what it meant. "It's late," Abby said, rising from her couch. "I'm getting tired, Constance, and I don't want to go upstairs alone."
Once back in their hotel room, Constance shed her clothes and began jumping on the bed. When Abby tried to get her to stop she began spinning in midair. "Nifty naked neophyte, pouty punchy vamp, crystal crunchy hematite, jiffy juicy scamp." She seized Abby's head, crushed the vampire's face into her throat, and began chanting, "Juicy, juicy."
Abby tore herself away. "Take your clothes off, Abby," Constance dared, pretending to fly. "Birds don't wear clothes."
Abby broke out the liquor and tobacco. "Have a smoke," Abby suggested, "and I'll hypnotize you."
"Oh, what fun."
Constance perched on the edge of the bed and began sipping a tumbler of rum. Soon the room was thick with cigar smoke, but Abby didn't mind. Constance babbled between puffs. It disturbed Abby that some of the mad girl's inanities were starting to make sense. Pregnant replies. The vampire touched a hand to Constance's temple and passed a memory into her mind.
Abby moved boldly through the coal tunnel's absolute blackness, discovering the collapsed section less than ten minutes after the alarm. Four miners were trapped. The vampire reckoned she would save three. She cleared rubble and led the men to an undamaged passage that, although unlighted, would be easy for experienced miners to follow to the surface. Then she returned to the final survivor, a man in his forties whose chest was crushed beneath rock even Abby would have a hard time lifting. She considered rousing the man. She would describe the mine explosion, ask if he had final words for his family. Fear and shame and nausea prevented her. She bared the miner's neck, tore open his jugular, and drained him dry.
By the time Abby made it back downstairs, everyone but Edward had left.
"Did the fountain run out of Coca-Cola?" Abby asked.
"No," Edward answered. "She drank Coke all day. It's just not lasting as long as it did."
"Give her more."
"There's only so much she can drink. I'm sorry, Abby."
Abby considered his protestations and realized he was sorry. He knew there was something wrong with Constance. Perhaps he had always known. Abby had assumed Edward was simply attracted to Constance. Mr. Inman had assumed the same, of course. But what if it was sympathy that compelled Edward to visit Constance?
"The Coca-Cola doesn't really work," Edward added, his voice filled with pain. "It makes her seem normal to those who don't know her, at least until it wears off. But if it really made her normal, she would notice the change. She would ask why she's acting and talking so differently. Coke helps her, but not enough to make her realize that it helps her. She's still not...aware. She's like a child in a woman's body."
"And me?" Abby found herself demanding. "What am I?"
Edward's eyes went wide at this unexpected query. He looked at the carpet. "You're a goddess in an angel's body," he said. Then he turned and walked away.
***
Abby carried a bag full of champagne bottles onto the back porch of John Stith Pemberton, inventor of Coca-Cola. Edward was right. Soda helped Constance, but not all the way to normal. A normal girl would turn to Abby and say, "Why am I suddenly speaking in coherent sentences? Why has my imaginary friend disappeared? Why did I kill a farm boy with a set of knitting needles? Why am I sharing a room with a blood sucking devil?" All reasonable questions. Constance wasn't asking any of them.
The vampire banged on the back door for several minutes before Pemberton finally appeared. "Dr. Pemberton," Abby began. "I have questions about Coca-Cola soda. I can pay," she said, lining up four bottles of champagne on the patio tiles. "And there's this," she added, holding out a hundred dollar bill.
"What's going on, child?" the man asked, wiping the sleep from his eyes. "Where are your parents?"
"My parents are dead," Abby replied, keeping the money before her like a shield. "My sister and I live at Kimball House. That's why I'm here. Your brain tonic helps my sister." Abby pulled the old ad from her pocket. "She suffers from nervous affections - neuralgia, hysteria, and melancholy. The Coca-Cola helps her, but not enough. And it seems like it's helping her less, too."
"Girl, put that money away," Pemberton insisted. "This is all quite improper, you must know that. Come to my office, set up an appointment."
"I can't do that," Abby protested, setting the hundred dollar bill on the ground and placing a bottle of champagne on top to keep it from blowing away. "Please, Dr. Pemberton. I need help, and I don't know who else to ask."
The old man sighed. "Well, come in, child. I'll get you something to eat."
"No," she said, taking a step back. "Don't invite me in. Just talk to me. Please."
"You are a curious creature," Pemberton noted, drawing a pipe from his robe and popping it into his mouth. "Tell me about your sister."
Abby recounted everything she could: hallucinations, nonsensical speech, memory gaps, fears that "they" would get her, ways Coca-Cola helped, inability to notice how it helped.
Pemberton posed clarifying questions for a while, then eventually asked, "Has your sister ever been placed in an asylum?"
"I need something more than Coke," Abby replied, ignoring him. "Better than Coke. Don't you have anything?"
"I'm a chemist, not a doctor."
"Isn't it the same thing?"
Pemberton smiled. "I wish it were." He disappeared inside for a minute, then returned and handed Abby a large glass bottle. "This is dangerous stuff," he noted. "But perhaps girls who prowl the night with champagne know something of danger."
Abby opened the container. It was full of white powder. She gave a sniff. It was odorless. She put the lid back on and read the label: lithium citrate.
"Coke works right away," the chemist explained. "Not lithium. It takes weeks to work. And if you take too much it kills you. That's the problem with it. It's real hard to get the dose right."
"So how much do I give her?"
"I heard of thirty grains sending a woman into convulsions, so I'd recommend less than that."
"How much less?"
"I don't know, that's the point. Some doctors have stopped using it entirely. Say it's not worth the risk."
Abby persisted. "What's a grain?"
Pemberton vanished once again. He returned bearing a tiny pharmacist's scale. "Tell you what, young lady. Leave the champagne, but take your money, the compound, and this instrument, and we'll call it even."
Abby stashed her new treasures in her bag and said goodnight. A slow-acting medicine was not what she had come for, but if that was all the chemist had she would give it a try. Hopefully two tonics would prove better than one.
***
Three nights later Abby was unloading stock in the Kimball House lounge when she became aware of a man seated in a side alcove. The gas lamps had all been turned off, but that didn't matter: Abby could still tell it was Mr. Inman. A bottle of whiskey sat on the table before him. Abby watched as he filled a glass, downed it, and began pouring more.
The vampire's instincts urged her to run. She approached Mr. Inman anyway, fascinated that he had once again surprised her in the dark. When Abby reached the edge of the table Edward's father neither stood nor offered her a seat. Instead he reached down, grabbed another bottle off the floor, and set it firmly on the table before her.
At first Abby had the bizarre notion that he was asking her to drink with him. But of course that couldn't be right. She looked at the bottle more closely and read its label out loud: "Pemberton's French Wine Coca."
"This is what Dr. Pemberton cares about," Inman explained. "He only developed Coca-Cola because Atlanta went dry. But he's sold the soda formula to investors so he can focus on marketing the wine coca."
Inman paused for Abby's benefit, but she didn't know what to say.
"It's the coca that helps your sister," Inman continued. "Some patents call it cocaine. Either way, it seems to be more effective when mixed with alcohol. That's why Dr. Pemberton is more interested in Wine Coca than Coca Cola. Try it instead of the soda, Miss Abigail. See what happens. And leave poor Dr. Pemberton alone," he added. "In the future if you need help, talk to me."
Abby wasn't sure what to make of this, but for the moment it didn't matter. She turned to leave.
"My best friend and I were wounded at Shiloh," Inman said, taking another drink. "The fight moved on, and we were left lying in the field. Suffering the dying. Smelling them after they died. Clangs and odors of hell, and that was bad enough. But the thirst! I had fought in the heat of the day. Now I was bleeding. How bad I didn't know. Enough to worsen the burning in my throat.
"The hour comes when I see a girl with long blonde hair walking toward me. This doesn't greatly upset me, as I figure every wounded man on the battlefield is hallucinating by now. She wears nothing but a white nightgown. Bare feet. Skin pale, translucent like a baby's. But I think this girl has to be twelve. She kneels down beside me and puts a canteen to my lips. How happy it makes me, this blessed water, even if it's a dream. She lifts my hands to hold the canteen. Her flesh is cold, and it smells strange, but I'm too thirsty to care.
"She switches to my friend. I can't see what she's doing, but she leans over him. I hear her bite. She makes swallowing sounds. What can I do? She drinks. I drink. We drink together. Eventually my canteen is empty, and so is my friend. One thing I hear quite clearly: she breaks his neck.
"The girl in white comes back for the canteen. I grab her hand. That's when she looks me in the eye. I don't think she meant to, but once she starts she can't stop. Her face is covered in blood, but that's not what fixes me. It's her eyes, Miss Abigail. A monster's would be more bearable. But I behold a hybrid. A human being desiccated rather than eliminated. A young woman's beauty tasked as bait to feed a fiend. An enchanted princess despairing, knowing there is nothing under the sun that can set her free.
"That's when I thank God she broke my friend's neck."