The Tale of the Body Thief (19 page)

This last remark stunned me before I could conceal it. I was enraged for one silent instant, and then I regained my control.

“Come, the café,” I said, pointing to the old French Market at the other side of the square. I hurried ahead along the pavement. I was too confused and excited to risk another word.

The café was extremely noisy but warm. I led the way to a table in the farthest corner from the door, ordered the famous café au lait
for both of us, and sat there in rigid silence, faintly distracted by the stickiness of the little table, and grimly fascinated by him, as he shivered, unwound his red scarf anxiously, then put it on again, and finally pulled off his fine leather gloves, and stuffed them in his pockets, and then took them out again, and put on one of them, and laid the other one on the table and then snatched it up again, and put it on as well.

There was something positively horrible about him, about the way this alluringly splendid body was pumped up with his devious, jittery spirit, and cynical fits of laughter. Yet I couldn’t take my eyes off him. In some devilish way I enjoyed watching him. And I think he knew it.

There was a provocative intelligence lurking behind this flawless, beautiful face. He made me realize how intolerant I had become of anyone truly young.

Suddenly the coffee was set down before us, and I wrapped my naked hands around the warm cup. I let the steam rise in my face. He watched this, with his large clear brown eyes, as if he were the one who was fascinated, and now he tried to hold my gaze steadily and calmly, which he found very hard. Delicious mouth, pretty eyelashes, perfect teeth.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” I asked.

“You know. You’ve figured it out. I’m not fond of this body, Monsieur de Lioncourt. A body thief has his little difficulties, you know.”

“Is that what you are?”

“Yes, a body thief of the first rank. But then you knew that when you agreed to see me, did you not? You must forgive me my occasional clumsiness. I have been for most of my life a lean if not emaciated man. Never in such good health.” He gave a sigh, the youthful face for a moment sad.

“But those chapters are closed now,” he said with sudden discomfort. “Let me come to the point immediately, out of respect for your enormous preternatural intellect and vast experience—”

“Don’t mock me, you little pissant!” I said under my breath. “You play with me, I’ll tear you apart slowly. I told you I don’t like you. Even your little title for yourself I don’t like.”

That shut him up. He calmed down altogether. Perhaps he lost his temper, or was frozen with terror. I think it was simply that he stopped being so fearful and became coldly angry instead.

“All right,” he said softly, and soberly, without all the frenzy. “I want to trade bodies with you. I want yours for a week. I’ll see to it that you have this body. It’s young, it’s in perfect health. You like the look of it, obviously. I shall show you various certificates of health if you wish. The body was quite thoroughly tested and examined right before I took possession of it. Or stole it. It’s quite strong; you can see that. Obviously, it’s strong, quite remarkably strong—”

“How can you do it?”

“We do it together, Monsieur de Lioncourt,” he said very politely, his tone becoming more civil and courteous with each sentence he spoke. “There can be no question of body theft when I’m dealing with a creature such as you.”

“But you’ve tried, haven’t you?”

He studied me for a moment, clearly unsure as to how he should answer. “Well, you can’t blame me for that now, can you?” he said imploringly. “Any more than I can blame you for drinking blood.” He smiled as he said the word “blood.” “But really I was simply trying to get your attention, which isn’t an easy thing to do.” He seemed thoughtful, utterly sincere. “Besides, cooperation is always involved on some level, no matter how submerged that level may be.”

“Yes,” I said, “but what are the actual mechanics, if that isn’t too crude a word. How do we cooperate with each other! Be specific with me. I don’t believe this can be done.”

“Oh, come now, of course you do,” he suggested gently, as if he were a patient teacher. It seemed almost an impersonation of David, without David’s vigor. “How else would I have managed to take ownership of this body?” He made a little illustrative gesture as he continued. “We will meet at an appropriate place. Then we will rise out of our bodies, which you know very well how to do and have so eloquently described in your writing, and then we will take possession of each other’s bodies. There’s nothing to it really, except complete courage and an act of will.” He lifted the cup, his hand trembling violently, and he drank a mouthful of the hot coffee. “For you, the test will be the courage, nothing more.”

“What will keep me anchored in the new body?”

“There’ll be no one in there, Monsieur de Lioncourt, to push you out. This is entirely different from possession, you understand. Oh, possession is a battle. When you enter into this body, there will be not
the slightest resistance from it. You can remain until you choose to disengage.”

“It’s too puzzling!” I said, with obvious annoyance. “I know reams have been written on these questions, but something doesn’t quite … ”

“Let me try to put it in perspective,” he said, voice hushed and almost exquisitely accommodating. “We’re dealing here with science, but it is science which has not yet been fully codified by scientific minds. What we have are the memoirs of poets and occult adventurers, quite incapable of anatomizing what takes place.”

“Exactly. As you pointed out, I’ve done it myself, traveled out of the body. Yet I don’t know what takes place. Why doesn’t the body die when one leaves it? I don’t understand.”

“The soul has more than one part, as does the brain. Surely you know that a child can be born without a cerebellum, yet the body can live if it has what is called the brain stem.”

“Dreadful thought.”

“Happens all the time, I assure you. Victims of accidents in which the brain is damaged irretrievably can still breathe and even yawn in their slumber, as the lower brain carries on.”

“And you can possess such bodies?”

“Oh, no, I need a healthy brain in order to take full possession, absolutely must have all those cells in good working order and able to lock into the invading
mind
. Mark my words, Monsieur de Lioncourt. Brain is not mind. But again, we are not talking of possession, but of something infinitely finer than that. Allow me to continue, please.”

“Go ahead.”

“As I was saying, the soul has more than one part, in the same manner as the brain. The larger part of it—identity, personality, consciousness, if you will—this is what springs loose and travels; but a small residual soul remains. It keeps the vacant body animate, so to speak, for otherwise vacancy would mean death, of course.”

“I see. The residual soul animates the brain stem; that is what you mean.”

“Yes. When you rise out of your body, you will leave a residual soul there. And when you come into this body, you will find the residual soul there as well. It’s the very same residual soul I found when I took possession. And that soul will lock with any higher soul eagerly
and automatically; it wants to embrace that higher soul. Without it, it feels incomplete.”

“And when death occurs both souls leave?”

“Precisely. Both souls go together, the residual soul and the larger soul, in a violent evacuation, and then the body is a mere lifeless shell and begins its decay.” He waited, observing me with the same seemingly sincere patience, and then he said: “Believe me, the force of actual death is much stronger. There’s no danger at all in what we propose to do.”

“But if this little residual soul is so damned receptive, why can’t I, with all my power, jolt some little mortal soul right out of its skin, and move in?”

“Because the larger soul would try to reclaim its body, Monsieur de Lioncourt, even if there were no understanding of the process, it would try again and again. Souls do not want to be without a body. And even though the residual soul welcomes the invader, something in it always recognizes the particular soul of which it was once a part. It will choose that soul if there is a battle. And even a bewildered soul can make a powerful attempt to reclaim its mortal frame.”

I said nothing, but much as I suspected him, indeed reminded myself to be on guard, I found a continuity in all he said.

“Possession is always a bloody struggle,” he reiterated. “Look what happens with evil spirits, ghosts, that sort of thing. They’re always driven out eventually, even if the victor never knows what took place. When the priest comes with his incense and his holy-water mumbo jumbo, he is calling on that residual soul to oust the intruder and draw the old soul back in.”

“But with the cooperative switch, both souls have new bodies.”

“Precisely. Believe me, if you think you can hop into a human body without my assistance, well, give it a try, and you’ll see what I mean. You’ll never really experience the five senses of a mortal as long as the battle’s raging inside.”

His manner became even more careful, confidential. “Look at this body again, Monsieur de Lioncourt,” he said with beguiling softness. “It can be yours, absolutely and truly yours.” His pause seemed as precise suddenly as his words. “It was a year ago you first saw it in Venice. It’s been host to an intruder without interruption for all of that time. It will play host to you.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Stole it, I told you,” he said. “The former owner is dead.”

“You have to be more specific.”

“Oh, must I, really? I do so hate to incriminate myself.”

“I’m not a mortal officer of the law, Mr. James. I’m a vampire. Speak in words I can understand.”

He gave a soft faintly ironic laugh. “The body was carefully chosen,” he said. “The former owner had no mind left. Oh, there was nothing organically wrong with him, absolutely nothing. As I told you, he’d been quite thoroughly tested. He’d become a great quiet laboratory animal of sorts. He never moved. Never spoke. His reason had been hopelessly shattered, no matter how the healthy cells of the brain continued to pop and crackle along, as they are wont to do. I accomplished the switch in stages. Jolting him out of his body was simple. It was luring him down into my old body and leaving him there which took the skill.”

“Where is your old body now?”

“Monsieur de Lioncourt, there is simply no way that the old soul will ever come knocking; that I guarantee.”

“I want to see a picture of your old body.”

“Whatever for?”

“Because it will tell me things about you, more perhaps than you yourself are telling me. I demand it. I won’t proceed without it.”

“You won’t?” He retained the polite smile. “What if I get up and leave here?”

“I’ll kill your splendid new body as soon as you try. No one in this café will even notice. They’ll think you’re drunk and that you’ve tumbled into my arms. I do that sort of thing all the time.”

He fell silent, but I could see that he was calculating fiercely, and then I realized how much he was savoring all this, that he had been all along. He was like a great actor, deeply immersed in the most challenging part of his career.

He smiled at me, with startling seductiveness, and then, carefully removing his right glove, he drew a little item out of his pocket and put it in my hand. An old photograph of a gaunt man with thick white wavy hair. I judged him to be perhaps fifty. He wore some sort of white uniform with a little black bow tie.

He was a very nice looking man, actually, much more delicate in appearance than David, but he had the same sort of British elegance
about him, and his smile was not unpleasant. He was leaning on the railing of what might have been the deck of a ship. Yes, it was a ship.

“You knew I’d ask for this, didn’t you?”

“Sooner or later,” he said.

“When was this taken?”

“That’s of no importance. Why on earth do you want to know?” He betrayed just a little annoyance, but then he covered at once. “It was ten years ago,” he said with a slight sinking of the voice. “Will it do?”

“And so that makes you … what? Mid-sixties, perhaps?”

“I’ll settle for that,” he said with a very broad and intimate smile. “How did you learn all this? Why haven’t others perfected this trick?”

He looked me up and down and a little coldly, and I thought his composure might snap. Then he retreated into his polite manner again. “Many people have done it,” he said, his voice assuming a tone of special confidence. “Your friend David Talbot could have told you that. He didn’t want to. He lies, like all those wizards in the Talamasca. They’re religious. They think they can control people; they use their knowledge for control.”

“How do you know about them?”

“I was a member of their order,” he said, his eyes brightening playfully, as he smiled again. “They kicked me out of it. They accused me of using my powers for gain. What else is there, Monsieur de Lioncourt? What do you use your powers for, if not for gain?”

So, Louis had been right. I didn’t speak. I tried to scan him but it was useless. Instead, I received a strong sense of his physical presence, of the heat emanating from him, of the hot fount of his blood. Succulent, that was the word for this body, no matter what one thought of his soul. I disliked the feeling because it made me want to kill him now.

“I found out about you through the Talamasca,” he said, assuming the same confidential tone as before. “Of course I was familiar with your little fictions. I read all that sort of thing. That’s why I used those short stories to communicate with you. But it was in the archives of the Talamasca that I discovered that your fictions weren’t fictions at all.”

I was silently enraged that Louis had figured it right.

“All right,” I said. “I understand all this about the divided brain
and the divided soul, but what if you don’t want to give my body back to me after we’ve made this little switch, and I’m not strong enough to reclaim it; what’s to keep you from making off with my body for good?”

He was quite still for a moment, and then said with slow measured words: “A very large bribe.”