CHAPTER 9: French Sauce And Lemon

Careful silence surrounded Manson Verger. Couched in slumber, he didn't speak for hours. There was no sign of the Good Doctor and his lady in Buenos Aires; he didn't have any clues to their whereabouts. The two of them would simply avoid any public places; after all, Clarice M. Starling is still pregnant and would stand out like a sore thumb.

"Tell Mr.Krendler to get his ass over here." Mason said to his staff.

"Good Morning, Paul" He greeted Inspector General in kindest of tones. "How are you FBI babies getting on?"

"Look, Mr. Verger, there's always a possibility..."

"That you won't get your money, you mean? There sure is. Tell me something. What will Hannibal Lecter do if he finds out just WHO is getting on his nerves?"

Krendler was about to answer, but thought better of it.

"I wonder which organ of yours he'll choose. Surely not your brain for there is no such thing in your head." Mason fell silent, saving his breath. Then said "I'll contact someone in Argentina, but that's a mere formality, really; he'll be out for a while, he's busy with Starling. I can't tell what kind of festival we're missing here. Maybe he'd like to try infantile flesh with French sauce and lemon juice. I wouldn't mind a bite myself."

Starling woke in semi-dark. She moved slightly on the bed and felt a deep soreness all over. She lay for a while in such anguish, such an intolerable sensation of infinite terror as she had never experienced before. Every minute she felt that she had forgotten something she ought to remember.

A voice was talking quietly to her.

"Waking, calm." A voice said. "Waking in a pleasant room."

She opened her eyes wide.

Hannibal Lecter stood over her, very still, very fresh-looking. With a kind of effort she began almost unconsciously, from some inner craving, to stare at all the objects before her, as though looking for something.

"Good morning, Clarice."

She sensed a tiny bitterish smell of medicines. She felt very clean, too.

"Where is..." She started, greatly excited, sitting up in the bed, rocking slightly, but Lecter stopped her by raising his finger to his red lips:

"Be very quiet."

He silently urged her to lie back again. Equally silently she grabbed his arm, firmly. Dr Lecter didn't seem to mind. He slowly lowered himself on the bed's edge.

"Sleeping." He answered, motioning somewhere behind him. "He seems to be very displeased with his surroundings."

A boy, then, Starling thought. And immediately heard something she wanted to hear long ago. The soft stirring of a child's body under the covers. Dr Lecter swiftly stood up and walked over to what seemed to be a high-tech infant incubator, and even though Starling was an ace in technique, she didn't know that much about incubators.

A tiny whimpering could be heard now. Doctor was carrying something very small wrapped in swaddling clothes.

"Morning, young man." Lecter was saying. "Welcome back. Hungry, I see. Very well." And to her "Would you like to feed us now, Madame?"

Starling fed the new-born as Dr Lecter watched the infant's throat making sure he was swallowing alright. She then saw the baby blink and yowl, rolling his unseeing eyes back into the eyelids. She was herself and not herself. When she wondered about events it was as though she saw them from the side, saw herself from a distance. Dr Lecter put the infant back in the incubator and laid down beside her.

Soon they were kissing madly. "Where are we?" Clarice asked finally, breathless, as Lecter nuzzled her neck with kisses, his red and pointed tongue appearing every now and then.

"Still in Argentina" He found her new scent intensely moving. "We'll have to move on as soon as the baby's ready. And I'd like to make some cosmetic changes." "Hungry?"

"Not yet, Hannibal, thank you." She paused. "You never said where exactly we're going."

"Ну, Кларисс, это же очевидно¹. St. Petersburg, Город на Неве ²."

¹ Isn't it obvious/It must be self-evident

² The City on the Neva)

In the Beginning Harris created 'Silence of the lambs'. And Harris said: 'Let there be a book" and there was the book. And Demme saw that the book was good; and he invited Hopkins over there... Many years passed, and then the Lecterphiles appeared.