Painfully, he opens his eyes, a burning pain lancing the inside of his chest. The faint glow of the sun, passing through the stained-glass windows, changes color and nature. For a moment, he thinks he is under the sea. No doubt because of the silence.
The last time he woke up, there was very little movement around him. And even those figures that did move let themselves be thrown back into the zones of half-light that assailed him from all sides. Dusk motion, swallowed up. The scene of his own death has always been like this. He is exhausted, wants to close his eyes to these hostile glances. He only sees the crucifix in front of him.
"Don't disappear! " His master's voice echoes inside him.
Outside, the sky is drowned in an ocean of looming clouds.
Though I have fallen, I will rise… Though I sit in darkness…
The nun had put her clothes out to dry on the wooden drying rack hanging from the ceiling. Everything was there, the rain had spared nothing, from chasuble to stockings and underwear. The air was clammy and hot, and she had put a more modest white linen dress back on underneath another chasuble.
This was pretty much how it had happened: soon after her call to the reverend mother, the few present monks in the monastery had set off to come to her aid. In the meantime, our nun didn't know what to do to help the stranger at her side, as moving him out of the rain she thought would be very dangerous for him due to its wound, and indeed she wouldn't have had the strength to do so. So she simply covered him with her own coat and covered his head with a rickety umbrella she had found in the back of her car. By the time her brothers joined her, she was soaked from head to toe; while the monks carried the stranger to the back of their own vehicle, she had to wring out her clothes several times before she could get in herself without creating a tidal wave.
The reverend mother had greeted the company with an unkind eye; she didn't like strangers and wasn't afraid to let them know it. She had the man taken to a small, dry, clean room on the first floor, for he looked so unwell that one wondered whether he could be carried to the warmer rooms above without considerable harm. The stranger's visceral pallor struck her greatly as well, and she didn't hold out much hope for him. As for our nun, she sent her to a visitors' cell on the second floor, where hot baths could be taken. As much as she disliked the nun, who had been landed there by the Vatican in great secrecy three years ago, she had enough on her hands to worry about an epidemic of pneumonia in her convent.
These initial details settled by her iron hand, a sister reported to her that help would not be forthcoming tonight in such a storm. The news barely raised a wrinkle of annoyance on her forehead. Very pragmatically, she called the village funeral parlor, because there was no way the man would make it through the night without medical help. Or a miracle would have to be hoped for…
All these problems disturbed her routine, and she resented the Sister Without Name who had brought a dying man into her convent. What a fuss it was now, she could hardly contain all the other sisters, those simpletons who didn't need much to imagine the tragic fate of a Christian hero - to hear them tell it, this man would be a martyr! It wasn't long before they forgot their true husband, Jesus Christ!
Painful as it was for her, she could only rely on the Sister Without Name to look after him, for she could not bear to listen to the tortured sighs of the other young nuns for weeks on end. At least she had never lacked virtue, that one! As for the old sisters, she expected no better of them than the young ones.
" Che tempo terribile! " she thinks, striding to the room of the Sister Without Name. She is satisfied to find the door of the cell already open, the Sister heard her coming.
"Good evening, Mother," our nun says.
A moment, the reverend mother cannot help but feel a little admiration at seeing her as fresh as a rose already. If only all the others could be so efficient!
"I don't suppose help has arrived yet in this weather?" says the nun.
"No, indeed, and it's even worse than that," she replies, "in fact, they told me flat out that they wouldn't come until there was a lasting lull."
"Because the roads are flooded?"
"Any excuse is a good one, Sister, theirs is that it's better one person in danger than many."
"I see."
"Brother Luciano just bandaged his wound. He said his condition is not much worse than before." Having said this, a preoccupied expression tinges her features and she opens her account book, which always seemed to appear out of nowhere as if by magic. She flips through a few pages, perhaps already estimating how much her charity will cost her. This drags on for a while, then finally, in one swift movement, she closes her binder, and looks over her glasses at the nun. "Anyway, I've come to see you to ask if you could ensure his care for this evening."
She watches the nun's reaction.
"Very well, Mother."
"Are you all dry and ready?"
"At your service, Mother."
"Very well, then let's go, I'll walk with you, then I'll leave you as I have lots to do." Saying this, the reverend mother heads for the exit. She seems pleased with herself for having concluded her matter so swiftly. Then, as if remembering something, she stops and turns towards the nun. Her incessant squinting has formed over the years a rather unsightly fold at the top of her nose. "Have you ever seen this man before, Sister?"
"No, Mother, I don't know him from Adam. Has he eaten yet?"
"No, he doesn't want to eat anything. If he's picky, all he'll get is leftovers. Don't make such a face, and hurry up a bit."
Our nun follows in her footsteps, but, reader, we have to walk fast because the reverend mother is descending the dark, winding staircase at great speed. Finally, she leaves our nun just a few steps from the stranger's room, and as she leaves, she gives her a sharp and severe look, and our nun knows exactly what she's thinking, it embarrasses her. She pretends to head for the room, then, when her Mother is out of sight, she heads back up the stairs, tumbling down the steps two at a time. She rushes back to her room and takes the hot meal she has been given for the night, which she hardly touched, and finally makes her way back down to the first floor. In a few short moments, she's back in front of the stranger's room. Our nun knocks lightly on the half-open door, enters and finds the man unconscious in bed.
The room is dimly lit by the flickering flames of wall candlesticks and a few night-lamps. A small table has been set up near the bed, where she sees a dry loaf of bread, a jug of water and some other basic medical equipment. The smell of clean sheets lingers in the air; as she places the stew on the table next to the bread, our nun finds that the reverend mother has made an effort after all. With great discretion, so as not to awaken the man, she takes a clean cloth folded on the edge of the table and dips it into a shallow bowl of water. As she moves closer to the bed, she examines the man's face briefly. At first, she is surprised by the expression of pride that paints the stranger's features, albeit unconscious. He was like a sleeping king, his features extremely noble before being quite handsome. His hair was the color of ebony, thick and scattered on the pillow. That is the first impression this face made on her, then only she notices the underlying fatigue and pain animating the man's expression.
Having made her observation, our nun's mind turns to her task altogether: very carefully, she brings the cloth to the stranger's face and, with extreme slowness and gentleness, wipes away the dried sweat that has gathered there. The room is immersed in absolute calm, she can hear the man's ragged breathing as she brings the towel down to his temples. As she does so, the stranger's eyebrows furrow slightly; she suspected she would eventually wake him, but his eyes are still closed. However, he begins to speak, and for the first time she hears his voice hoarse with pain, this is what he says:
"You came."
For a moment, the nun is a little perplexed to hear English, but continues without much thought to very gently clean the stranger's face. She pauses as she sees his eyes slowly open, their gazes meet. Unsurprisingly, disappointment seems to mark all his features, surely he was thinking of someone else. In spite of herself, the nun is greatly amused and feels politely obliged to say something:
" Signore, se permette... "
"Enough of your broken Italian," the man cuts her off, then after a pause: "You are English and as such, you will speak English."
The nun is quite stunned by this first contact, well she finds it so absurd that she has to refrain from laughing.
"Sir, I think you're a little delirious."
The man answers nothing, his eyelids close with pain, and our nun thinks he has fainted again. All this effort to show such pride! Her first impression has not deceived her in any case. She waits a while to see if he wakes up but, seeing that he was drifting again, she returns to the table and this time grabs a large compress. Brother Luciano has done a good job, the bandage is quite neatly wrapped, all she has to do is to remove the pins and replace the present compress, disgorging nearly black blood.
Our nun's main shock this evening is exactly at that moment. On removing the pad, the wound has precisely the same appearance as before, and even more curiously, it seems to be spitting blood as if completely fresh and, then, after a few moments, the blood coagulates completely, the wound retracts, before reopening again. It was quite literally a Sisyphean wound! The nun could not believe her eyes. A shudder from the sheet tears her out of her stupor; the man is awake again. He has that same disturbing expression as when she first found him; without flinching, she resumes her work. With the compress firmly in place, she replaces the light sheet halfway up the stranger's chest while his eyes follow her every move.
"Sir, would you like to eat or drink something?" asks the nun.
The sentence seems to revive the stranger's senses, he says: "What are you offering me to drink?"
"Only water, sir."
The man's expression turns grim again.
"I can bring you some wine tomorrow, if you prefer."
"Do that, then."
The nun is quite entertained by the answer - here's a very sick king ordering her around!
"Is that your own meal you've brought me?" the man says as a flicker of amusement passes through his eyes. "Your sisters didn't seem to think earlier that I deserved more than stale bread."
This time, our nun feels herself blushing from head to toe. What shame, what bad charity, is this the result of a lifetime of devotion in a cloister? She hardly dares to look at the stranger when she hears him chuckle.
"It doesn't matter, I have no use for it in any case. Leave me now."
The man no longer has the strength to speak. She peers at him for a moment with great pity, then retreats into the dense shadows of the monastery.
Our nun slept little that night, her mind better entertained by thoughts of Sisyphus. Besides, it turned out not to be a night at all: the thick curtain of clouds has not lifted since the storm first broke, and daylight has simply sunk in without fading. When the sisters rang the first bell at five o'clock in the morning, the quiet lapping of water in the gutters, the lazy slap of droplets against the thin panes of her cell's window has not ceased in the slightest.
Her body disobeys her more readily than her mind to emerge from her straw mattress, nevertheless, by six o'clock, she is already hunched over the document she has received the day before. The whole cell is fragrant with the fresh smell of coffee, a whole pot of it is brewing. When the sun finally rises, the rain flushes scarlet like a glacier embracing the autumn light.
Her sisters are also busy, the bustle in the corridor slightly distracts her; anyway, the next moment, one of them comes knocking at her door. It's her cell neighbor, a simple, strong, middle-aged woman; the bottom of her dress is soggy; she holds two empty buckets in her reddened hands, as if frostbitten.
"Your day job, sister!" she exclaims humorously, brandishing her bucket like an armed Valkyrie.
"What an entrance! Am I on housekeeping duty?"
"No, even better! It's flooding in the cellars, a real disaster!"
And so that was the first order of duty for the sisters, many of them descending into the dark depths of the cloister just as daylight was breaking. Though the very opposite of creatures of the night, they, too, seem to operate best in the shadows. The atmosphere was collegial enough, however, as they set about their task; any small disturbance in the nuns' daily routine would leave them in a mild euphoria, and it was with much laughter that the buckets were filled and emptied into the drainage gutters outside the convent.
Of course, our Sister Without Name was pressed several times by her fellow sisters to describe the stranger who was sleeping a few meters above the site of their toil; rumors travel fast in a monastery, and all attentive ears were aware that she had taken care of him the evening before, and already it was said that it was thanks to her good care that he had made it through the night. Our sister was obliged to give a little grist for her mill, so her supposition that the nobility of his features certainly indicated royal descent amused them all greatly.
Their labor was over by mid-afternoon and, starving, they rushed silently to the refectory, with only the clatter of their soaked sandals squeaking on the tiled floor echoing between the stone walls. It was with great surprise that, as they emerged from the bowels of the earth, they noticed that the storm was still raging outside. Our sister spent the rest of the day in study, her mind cleared by the morning's physical strain, and her resolve made. She worked in peace and efficiency, as was her wont.
The sisters went to bed early that night, exhausted physically by their efforts and morally by the storm that was still in full swing. As a matter of principle, the reverend mother announced lights out with her clappers along the dormitories, but there were no stragglers that evening. The convent sank into darkness and the fury of the wind.
Meanwhile, our nun lies in bed, dressed, heart pounding and palms sweaty, for dozens of minutes. An uneasiness amalgamates in her entrails. She eventually feels a little ashamed of her cowardice and rises from her straw mattress; with her toes - the old wood of her cell's floor creaks easily - she slips on her lightest, most discrete sandals. Then, from her personal effects cupboard, she pulls out an already-started candle and places it in a rusty candlestick.
The corridor is pitch-black, and she can see for barely a meter with her candlestick. The shadows moving with the dance of the flame do not frighten her, but the silence marked by the sporadic creaking of the woodwork does. She wavers still: counting on the chance of not being caught by anyone is a risky gamble, but letting this stranger spend another day within these walls even more so. She has not done all this work, all these sacrifices, to give it all up now.
So she heads down the dormitory stairs, toward her damnation, perhaps.
Lit only by the faint glow of her candle, she finds her way back to the man's room with ease. Her heart is thumping hard in her chest, blood rushing and pounding against her skull, her temples. She takes a deep breath, which calms her immediately, and, with the flat of her hand, she silently opens the door, still ajar.
The man is awake, which surprises her without totally disconcerting her; he stares at her through his lashes, his gaze exhausted but with a glimmer of curiosity. His mouth opens to speak, and our nun silences him so to say by placing a finger in front of hers. As if to confirm what she already knows, she glances at the table by the bed: again, no water, no food has been touched.
Our nun strides into the darkness with silent, supple steps. On her way, she picks up the small chair alongside the table and places it some distance from the bed. A pleasant rustle of fabric accompanies her movement. The dry, burning flame of her candle illuminates her face with a salient flare; the man's face is also bathed in this light, though his complexion looks even more livid than the night before. He speaks first, quietly:
"Well, little nun, were you bored without me?"
"You have the strength to banter," she whispers back, "how do you do?"
"I would be feeling better if you had kept your word."
"Pardon?"
He glances down at her hands, raising his eyebrows a little, a smile forming on his lips. "You came empty-handed; you promised me yesterday the blood of your God."
Silence falls between them, only the crackle of rain on the covent's frame can be heard. The nun puts her glasses back in place, and finally says:
"Certainly, sir, I forgot the wine tonight; I cannot offer you the blood of my God, only mine."
His gaze lifts to hers, a strange depth partially discloses in his eyes, something which makes the nun feel like shrinking, as if wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills. A thud is heard at the far end of the corridor, and the nun turns slowly towards the door; both wait in silence, but nothing else disturbs the muted night.
"I am not sure I understand you," the stranger resumes.
"Would it quench your thirst, sir?"
The nun cannot describe the quiver in the man's eyes, which makes her see what she could most liken to a raving hunger. She sits still as the stranger draws on his strength to rise in bed. He looks at her for a minute. Then the man leans his arms out of bed and, with a swiftness of movement the nun did not see coming, grabs hold of the front legs of her chair and pulls her roughly towards the bed. Her knees knock against its base, the candlestick nearly topples over, but she arrives in one piece, her back pressed against the backrest, her heart throbbing. The flame now fully illuminates the man's face, only a few inches away from hers.
"Is it your blood you're offering me?"
The nun remains riveted to his gaze, saying nothing. His voice was soft, almost... seductive.
"And what do you wish in return for this selfless action? Not to disappoint you, but I am no Faust." She keeps silent, runs her tongue over her lips. "Say it, little nun."
"I ask you to leave this place when you can, and that you attract no attention here. And of course, don't bleed me dry."
The man's face changes abruptly at her answer, and he starts laughing, a deranged laugh that makes her blood run cold.
"'Be quiet, sir, be quiet now!" the nun rushes him.
He continues to chuckle softly for a few moments, after which he emerges completely from the bed, our nun finding herself encircled, as it were, by his absurdly long legs.
"What's your name, again?" he asks when he snaps out of his delirium.
The nun remains silent for several seconds. "I have no name."
The man looks frankly surprised. "Is that so?" he replies. "Let's see... I only know of the Vatican's Section III that strips their agents of their names."
The nun's expression betrays nothing. While still looking at her, he slowly brings his hand to the collar of the nun's dress. He pauses for a few moments, but she does not protest. With a deft movement, he undoes the first button, revealing the radiant whiteness of her neck.
"Don't you want to know the name of your malefactor?"
"I do not see the point."
A low hum emanates from him in response. Two icy fingers pass the neckline of her dress, exposing the skin; his touch makes her shiver all over. With his other hand, he grabs the candlestick she holds and sets it down on the bed beside him. Now they are plunged into thicker darkness.
"No regrets?"
The nun smiles, what a peculiar man, she thinks.
"The smile is fine," he says, catching instantly the passing expression; "but speak too."
"Go ahead, vampire, before I change my mind."
She doesn't know what it is about what she's just said that provokes him, but then the man makes a hoarse, primal sigh that shakes her whole being. She feels almost unable to move as he lowers himself to her. The man's warm breath against her throat sends her heart racing. First, she feels the softness of his lips against her neck, then something else, cold, hard and sharp. His fangs close on her slowly. In a matter of seconds, a burst of pain explodes her nerves, and she holds back a groan. It was like icy steel slicing through her, numbing every inch of her limbs. She feels her blood rush into his mouth, and she hears him swallow it all, too.
His hands hold her in his grip, she feels only those hands as her whole body trembles for warmth. Her gaze is drawn relentlessly to the flickering candlelight, like a moth into flame, waiting for the moment to pass, enduring the pain. She feels so exhausted that she can barely keep her eyes open, but she struggles on: the fire that blinds her when her eyelids close frightens her. The little flame of the candle is twirling for some more, at some point that she cannot remember it fades and everything goes black.
She knows that right now, the whole monastery is burning. It's an inferno that even the storm cannot stop, everything's burning, the smell of burning wood, it smells like flesh - stop it!
The nun jolts awake. Her eyes wide, she lies on her straw mattress, unable to move, her breathing ragged. In the distance, she hears the masts ringing. There's no more lapping in the gutter. The rain has stopped.
When she finds the strength to stand up, a stabbing pain shoots up the back of her neck and into her shoulders. ' Was it all a dream? ' She runs her hand over her neck, feeling nothing. No irregularities. ' Yesterday, I didn't come downstairs, I fell asleep, fully dressed, in bed. ' She hovers her hand over the buttons of her dress, the first button is securely closed.
She parts the curtain a little. The sky is blue and clear. The sun is pale, but visible for the first time in two days. She sees the convent gardens completely flooded, the same goes for the fields in the distance. She has the feeling that this has all been a bad dream all along. She glances at her desk, her study papers in the same mess as the day before. Nothing has changed.
The reverend mother's bells echo down the corridor. Life goes on at the monastery. The nun heads for her slightly decrepit tap, unbuttons her high collar and refreshes her face with icy water. As she wipes her face, facing the mirror above the tap, something catches her eye in her reflection. With a hasty gesture, she rolls back her collar, and sees a large bruise along her neck. The mother's bells have time to pass twice in the corridor and our nun still hasn't moved an inch. Running her fingers along the contusion, she notices two faint red circles in the center.
Outside the corridor, she hears a cacophony of voices. Everyone is agitated. She knows why. The man is gone.