The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life by Michael Talbot Read Free Book Online Page A

a change in her. She was hesitant, but she resumed her playing. Her face remained blank and expressionless, but her small, delicate hands melted into the keys with such skill and emotion I was overwhelmed. I looked down at the hands.
    The thin, rapid music filled the room. The waltz she played sounded familiar, and then it came to me. Cook often hummed it as she was working. Somehow Camille had memorized it and had learned to play it upon the pianoforte. Still overcome with amazement I placed a red wax disc upon the gramophone and one of Mendelssohn’s simpler melodies from his Songs Without Words issued scratchily from the large horn. As soon as it had finished, Camille returned to the keyboard. Without hesitation she tapped out the plaintive melody precisely as it had been arranged in the recording. In complete awe I played s Bach fugue, and then a Mozart sonata, and each time she played them back, note for note, measure for measure, exactly as they had been written.
    By some stupendous fluke of nature, Camille, the idiot child who could not perform the simplest of everyday tasks, possessed a genius for music unequaled by even the most accomplished virtuoso. Although she could not see to read a single note or even express the slightest comprehension of the word “music,’” it was only necessary for her to hear a composition once, any composition, and she could play it perfectly, with inspiring expertise. In psychological terminology she was what was known as an idiot savant, an individual who was retarded or subnormal in intelligence, but who possessed an incredible skill or talent in one specific area. Several of my colleagues urged me to put little Camille on tour and profit from this talent, but I could never bring myself to exploit her. For the first time in my life I realized I could not view Camille as a deficient human being. She may not have been a normal child, but a talent like hers belonged to no mere mortal. In some ineffable way Camille was very special In time, my repulsion for Camille, for that poor, sweet child, began to fade. Instead of the empty infinite, I began to see innocence in her face. I grew to love the child with a love I would never have thought possible. As I worked I would find myself thinking of her face. It was not a striking face. It was plain. Her eyes were ashen. I would find myself smiling when I thought of how her chestnut hair curled around the tiny, perfectly formed little ear. It might have been the face of any urchin on the street, soft and round, unmarred by experience, a simple face plucked from the ocean of children, and yet it was captivating merely because it was a child’s face. I took her frequently on walks. I held crickets to her ear. Slowly, cautiously, I abandoned myself to the haunting touch of her hands. In time I even grew to look forward to her artless embraces, the pressure of her fingers against my back. I comforted her when it thundered. I warmed beneath her touch. It was her only expression outside of her music. Her hands.
    Understandably, Ursula was surprised by my change in attitude toward little Camille. Ursula never mentioned it, but I could tell she was mystified by my conversion. She did not seem jealous. Indeed, it was often I who was hurt by her aloofness and independence. In time she grew accustomed to my new closeness with Camille. Only once or twice did Ursula’s gaze reveal that perhaps she was hiding something, that she was a little more deeply affected than she let on by my special love for her sibling.

IV
    These were the events that shaped my character, and the events that left me on the doorstep of something I was not quite prepared for. I did not know it then, but the series of occurrences that followed would ultimately change my life. After Camille’s birth Haemophilus influenzae became the consuming passion of my life. I spent all of my free time either in my office at the university or in the laboratory I had set up in my home. I was