Jacob, p.3
Jacob, page 3
“Those are good guesses. They’re consistent.”
“With the facts?”
“With each other. Anything else?”
“Um. Well, if the person has hyperesthesia, that would show up as … um, a…”
“Yes…?”
“Severe allergy to sunlight—” I stop.
Jacob grins. Again with the teeth. I’m not sure I like that.
“Um.”
Jacob reaches over and gently pushes my laptop shut. “Let’s go for a walk,” he says. “A nice walk in the dark.” Seeing my expression, he adds, “Oh, don’t be silly. I just had a steak sandwich and coffee. I’m good for now.” He tosses some bills on the table, paying for both of us.
I slide the computer into my knapsack and follow him out to the parking lot, out past the light to the park beyond. Under the trees, where the night is even darker—here, there’s only a trace of moonlight to hint at shape and form.
“Let’s talk,” he says.
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”
Jacob stops, turns and looks at me. “Mostly, you’ve been talking. Now, it’s my turn.” In the pale darkness, he seems to glow. “You’re not the first to figure it out—that it’s not a supernatural thing. Some of us are scientists. Some of us asked to be … turned. So they would have enough time. And so could study the condition from the inside.”
“Is it curable?”
“You’re assuming we might want that. I’m not sure that any of us do.” Jacob explains, “Our research is secret. Our resources are necessarily limited. But … we’re beginning to understand ourselves. And our condition.
“It’s a parasitic symbiosis, an infectious mutation, a transformational phenomenon, none of that and all of that. Remember that movie? The one with the big green pods. You fell asleep for a while and then, when you woke up, you were different—it’s like that. Only it isn’t.”
He sits down on the stone bench. “You did miss one thing, though. It does extend the lifespan. We’re not immortal, but for all practical purposes, we might as well be. We age so slowly it’s imperceptible.”
“May I ask? How old are you?”
He pats the bench next to him. An invitation. I sit.
“I am very young,” he says. “I was born in Seattle. In 1858. My mother died in childbirth. My father died at sea. He was a fisherman, his boat sank in a storm. I was an orphan at thirteen. I became a street rat, and a peg-boy—”
“I’m not familiar with the term—”
“Be grateful.” He pauses.
I was … used by men. It kept me alive.
You might find this hard to believe, but many of them were kind—even tender. Later, when I grew older, the customers were rougher. So … I went into another line of work. One day—well, let’s just say I wasn’t as good at picking pockets as I thought I was. I chose the wrong target—or maybe the right target. I thought he was just another old man, a strange one because he moved so slowly, but—he could move a lot faster than me. Later on, I understood why, but the moment it happened, I was paralyzed. He had a grip like an iron bear-trap. But he wasn’t angry. He was amused. He pulled me around in front of him and stared into my face and said, “I admire your courage.”
I was too shocked to say anything. I didn’t have to. He leaned down and whispered into my ear. “I will give you a choice. Would you like to share my dinner? Or be my dinner?”
I don’t know how I knew, but—I knew he meant it, every word. Something in his voice, not the sound of it, but the way he said it. He had a very soft voice, almost womanly, very musical. I think that’s why I went with him. His voice.
He took me to a place down by the wharf where the fishing boats came in. I hadn’t been there since my father died, it wasn’t that I was afraid of the place—I just associated it with bad luck. But that night—it was a different world, bright with gas lamps and cigars, painted whores and boisterous sailors. And us—tucked away in an upholstered retreat, on the second floor of an ancient but still expensive eatery at the shadowy end of the boardwalk. I had salmon and scallops and a big bowl of crab chowder, potatoes and beer and finished up with cake and coffee, more food in one place than I’d ever seen in my life.
He ate too, but not as much. Mostly, he watched me. I figured he’d probably want me to share his bed later. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been picked up on the street. It was a rougher life than sitting on a peg, but the pay was better. You didn’t have to give half of it to the whoremaster. And I had already figured that if this man was as gentle as his voice, it wouldn’t be so bad. You get pretty good at recognizing who’s safe and who isn’t—although sometimes they fool you. With Monsieur—that’s what he told me to call him—I wasn’t sure, but I belonged to him now, for as long as he wanted me. At least it would be a bed.
“And that was when he turned you?”
“Oh, hell no.” Jacob laughs. “No. My … transformation came later, much later.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Of course you wouldn’t. It’s a trope that lazy writers use—that the people of the dark are so eager to recruit they have no sense of taste, pardon the pun. Maybe you don’t give much consideration to your choice of meals—or life partners—but the men of The Community do. Especially where eternity is involved. There’s patience, even wisdom. The careful distinctions of time and possibility. That’s something else you haven’t thought out. Once again, the mythology has obscured the reality.”
I retreat to the safe question. “What am I missing?”
“Only the obvious. Probably because you’re too young to see it. The same way I was. Stop and think what it means to have an extended life-span. You were smart enough to recognize the hallucinatory aspects of the condition—are you smart enough to realize the rest of it?
“What do you think the world looks like to someone who moves through it unchanging? Meanwhile, everything whirls around you, decade after decade—a century passes, another starts, and you’re still young and vibrant, still hungry for experience. What do you do? Seek out endless pleasure? At first, maybe. But you have no idea how quickly that becomes boring, an endless merry-go-round of sensation. No thanks. Delight and wonder are spices that add flavor to life, they are not the stuff of life itself. A hard lesson for children to learn.
“No. Here’s what you do instead. You read voraciously, you attend concerts and seminars, you explore the details of the city, you scour the libraries and museums, you attend courses at the university, you travel and observe, you seek out knowledge and understanding—and you seek out people of intelligence and insight. All those things for which you have no time—suddenly, you have all the time.
“Do you know why it’s such a pity that human beings are so short-lived? It takes you too long to figure out how to live—and just about the time you do, you die. And all your preciously gained knowledge and experience dies with you. You can spend a lifetime becoming an expert in science or medicine, history or philosophy—and then, in the blink of an eye, you’re gone, it’s gone, all that learning disappears from the world. Lost forever.
“Do you want to know what the real hunger is? Not for blood—that’s for beginners. No, the real hunger is knowledge. Experience. Insight. Enlightenment. Levels of understanding that surpass what’s possible in a single lifetime—levels so far beyond simple mastery they have no name. That’s the only real justification for … for this.” He holds up his hands, pale in the moonlight. “Yes, I’m hungry. For the deeper sustenance of the soul. So, I ask you now—why would I, or anyone else so blessed, so cursed—why would any of us want to spend even the most fleeting of moments with an unfinished, inexperienced, incredibly naïve adolescent? A teenage girl or boy? Ignorant, uneducated, and mostly uninteresting. Why? Where’s the attraction in that? Her beauty? At best, it would be a passing fancy, a casual engagement, a distraction, a diversion, a bit of novelty, a momentary confection. But a relationship? A life-partner? Please. Endless romance is an adolescent masturbation fantasy.”
Jacob stops and takes a breath. He turns back to me, eyes hard. “Does it happen? Yes. Sometimes. And the results are usually horrific. Turning a child creates a monster. An adolescent—the condition affects their hormones—they get caught in uncontrollable lust, they have to create other monsters like themselves—for their blood-orgies. It’s not romance, it’s insanity. Those are the ones who end up with stakes through their hearts, with their heads cut off, buried at crossroads, burned alive—those are the ones who have created the mythos, the crazy ones.”
He holds up his hands again. “Look. See the way I shine in the dark? Yes, we do glow.” He laughs. “But it’s the way we reflect light, that’s all. I’ll share a secret with you—it’s not so secret anymore—but we’re changing the narrative.
“It used to be, we wanted the world to dismiss the tales as ignorance and superstition. Unworthy of serious scientific inquiry. That worked, to a degree, it allowed us to stay safely undiscovered in the shadows, but it also made us objects of fear. Predators. Enemies.
“Not too long ago, a generation perhaps, you would not have accepted my invitation. You would not have walked into the darkness willingly with me. We would not have sat and talked. No, you would have retreated, repelled, horrified. You would have trapped yourself in your own fearful loneliness. And I—I also would have been alone. You would have learned nothing from me. I would have learned nothing from you. Both of us—we would have been denied the discovery of each other.
“Today, we are objects of sympathy, people are interested in us. People identify with us. People even care about us. A generation from now, maybe two, who knows? Perhaps we will someday have our own pride parade down Bourbon Street—at midnight, of course. It will be an interesting time. However … I do not see myself coming out of the coffin any time soon. Based on the hysteria of you short-timers, I think it likely I will be safer remaining in the shadows.” Jacob falls silent, thinking about a future I will not live to see.
Finally, I ask, “So if Monsieur didn’t want to turn you—?”
Jacob shakes his head and smiles, remembering.
Shall I describe him now? Yes, I will.
He was not what you would call tall. But he was a good height for the time. He had a stocky build, like one who had worked with his body for most of his life. But his skin was curiously pale and his hands had returned to the softness of an easier life.
His eyes were paradoxically both dark and gleaming at the same time. His features were even, neither coarse nor soft, neither rugged nor feminine, but with a hint of all those qualities, depending on the light as well as his expression.
Mostly, however, he seemed to have an undefinable attraction. The more he spoke, the more I wanted to listen to him. The more I looked into his face, the more I wanted to continue looking.
We talked. I should say that mostly I talked. He asked questions. I hadn’t realized I’d been through so much, but he extracted my entire life story in a very short time. Even the worst parts. The parts I didn’t want to discuss. But he had that power to draw it out.
Later, I realized Monsieur had been interviewing me, studying me. Finally, over cake and coffee, apparently satisfied, he offered me a job. Room and board and a few dollars a week. He needed someone to manage his house during the day. He said he could not bear the sunlight, so his waking and sleeping hours were inverted from those of other people.
He needed a daykeeper. Someone to manage the minutiae of the place while he retreated from the glaring eye of the sun. At first I suspected his intentions, who wouldn’t? But winter was coming in hard and my resources were already meager. And Monsieur wasn’t bad-looking, he was clean, and he seemed gentle enough. How could I not be tempted?
He reassured me at great length that his intentions were honorable. He simply needed someone to manage the housekeeping of the day, bring in the mail, accept deliveries from the local grocers, sign for occasional shipments, that kind of thing—and firmly turn away all morning and afternoon inquiries. “Do you have an appointment? No? Well, please leave your card. Monsieur will get back to you at his pleasure.” Or, “Monsieur is resting now and cannot be disturbed. Please come back after sunset. Monsieur will see you then.” I had to bathe every day, wear clean clothes, and never leave the house while the sun was up. At sunset, I would prepare the tea.
But that was only the easy part. There was another requirement as well. Every day I had to read a book from his library, any book I chose. He had an amazing collection of books, most of them shipped from New York and London. In the evening, he would come down from his chambers—I was forbidden to enter his rooms during the day—and we would sit together and we would discuss what I had read. If I hadn’t kept up with my reading, if I hadn’t paid close enough attention to manage a real discussion, he’d catch me out quickly.
The first time it happened, he made it clear that the reading was the most important part of my job. He wanted a companion worthy of his intelligence. Very gently, he asked me—if I didn’t like reading, would I be happier returning to the street? Because if I wasn’t going to read, if I wasn’t going to hold up my end of the discussion in the evenings, why should he keep me around? I never skipped a day of reading after that. When he was satisfied that I had learned something from the book, we would go out to dinner. I knew he was trying to teach me, of course—but the other part of it was that he did not want to leave the house until after the evening bustle of the streets had subsided. But the sessions were useful. I began to sense that there were farther horizons in the world than I had ever considered before.
Later, after he was satisfied that I was capable of study, Monsieur arranged for tutors, all kinds. They taught me history and philosophy and the manners of a gentleman. He bought me clothes to match my new demeanor. I learned to speak French, play the piano, and even studied a bit of medicine as well.
It was a grand time, it was the grand fruition of the enlightenment—the world was changing, recognizing the advancements of science and industry. It was ironic as well—because this great enlightenment had also encouraged the people of the dark to turn their attentions inward and begin studying themselves. Ourselves. That was when a few brave souls even made themselves known to certain men of medicine. It was foolish and courageous, but necessary. But—I digress.
Monsieur was grooming me, first to be his keeper, later his companion. But for most of that time, I think I was merely his … his pet. His guard dog of the moment. I don’t think he had any plans to turn me at the beginning. Later on, I was an interesting experiment. Could a daykeeper be brought up?
From time to time, Monsieur would entertain visitors, gentlemen like himself. I would lay out meats and cheeses, wine glasses and decanters of port or sherry, most of which they would leave untouched. Sometimes they would allow me to stay in the room and listen to their conversations, but I didn’t enjoy that much. The way they treated me, it felt like they were patronizing me, as if I were a child—or worse, some kind of marvelously well-trained animal, a specimen for their amusement.
I recall one of these gentlemen remarking that it was both dangerous and foolish for Monsieur to trust me so implicitly. Another agreed, but said he could understand the attraction. Often, they spoke about me as if I was an object of some kind, something without comprehension or feelings—as if I were not even in the room.
Later, after they left, usually in the last thoughtful hours before dawn, Monsieur would excuse their unconscious rudeness, explaining that they had come from different times and different places, and did not yet understand the new world as well as he did.
From time to time, we would visit the homes of one or another of these same gentlemen. It made me realize that Monsieur was an exception to the rule. Some of their apartments were dark and curiously bare of the details of daily existence, the rooms maintained solely as an illusion of mundanity. Some of the men shared accommodations and their homes were meticulously immaculate. This latter observation was my first clue to the heightened sense of smell that all of these individuals enjoyed—or suffered from. You cannot imagine how badly a city can smell if it is not well-tended. Two or three of Monsieur’s acquaintances had housemen of their own, mostly to manage the same chores I had. One looked at me skeptically, as if he disapproved of my existence. Another gave me a conspiratorial wink, as if we both shared the same secret—but a secret I did not yet know.
For the most part, however, Monsieur and I lived a life apart from that particular social circle. While he never specifically said so, it did seem to me that he took little pleasure in those occasional gatherings, attending more of necessity than affection. I did not know then what they discussed in private, but it was quickly evident that these gentlemen also shared the same disability as Monsieur. Later, when I was allowed to attend myself, as the newest member of the club, so to speak, I quickly understood his disaffection. But I also found it a useful colloquium, a seminar of mutual purpose, a school for survival in a world of massive disagreement. But at the time, I knew nothing of this. Only later.
At least once a month, usually in the darkest part of the lunar cycle, Monsieur’s behavior would become unpredictable. For several evenings in a row, as the hours lengthened toward midnight, he would become restless. He’d start to pace, he’d become irritable and unapproachable. I learned to recognize the signs and remain as unobtrusive as possible.
Finally, almost in anger, he would reach for his great dark coat and walking stick. At first I’d offer to accompany him, insisting that it wasn’t safe for anyone of wealth to be out and alone in the city, especially not this late at night, but Monsieur always dismissed my concerns, similarly rejecting my offer to join him, saying that he said he needed to take the night air alone. He bade me stay in my room, get a good night’s rest, and not to worry, no harm could ever come to him. I couldn’t help but notice the strange way he phrased that. No harm could ever come to him. Not would, but could.
