Merrick - Anne Rice [82]
Now, I was almost seventy years of age when I received this letter, and her words presented quite a challenge to me, and one which I didn’t welcome at all. Though I longed for the jungles, longed for the experience, I was quite concerned that it was beyond my ability to make such a trip.
Merrick went on to explain that she had spent many hours going through the artifacts retrieved on her girlhood journey.
“They are indeed older,” she wrote, “than those objects which archaeologists call Olmec, though they undoubtedly share many common traits with that civilization and would be called Olmec-oid due to their style. Elements we might call Asian or Chinese proliferate in these artifacts, and then there is the matter of the alien cave-paintings which Matthew managed to photograph as best he could. I must investigate these things personally. I must try to arrive at some conclusion regarding the involvement of my Oncle Vervain in this part of the world.”
I called her that night from London.
“Look, I’m entirely too old to go off into that jungle,” I said, “if it’s even still there. You know they’re cutting down the rain forests. It might be farmland by now. Besides, I’d slow you down no matter what the terrain.”
“I want you to come with me,” she said softly, coaxingly. “David, please do this. We can move at your pace, and when it comes time to make the climb in the waterfall, I can do that part alone.
“David, you were in the jungles of the Amazon years ago. You know this sort of experience. Imagine us now with every microchip convenience. Cameras, flashlights, camping equipment; we’ll have every luxury. David, come with me. You can remain in the village if you like. I’ll go on to the waterfall alone. With a modern four-wheel drive vehicle, it will be nothing at all.”
Well it wasn’t nothing at all.
A week later I arrived in New Orleans, determined to argue her out of the excursion. I was driven directly to the Motherhouse, a little disturbed that neither Aaron nor Merrick had come to meet my plane.
12
AARON GREETED ME at the door.
“Merrick’s at her house in New Orleans. The caretaker says she’s been drinking. She will not talk to him. I’ve called every hour since morning. The phone simply rings and rings.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this was happening?” I demanded. I was deeply concerned.
“Why? So you’d worry about it all the way across the Atlantic? I knew you were coming. I know you’re the only one who can reason with her when she’s in this state.”
“Whatever in the world makes you think so?” I argued. But it was true. Sometimes I could talk Merrick into ending her binges. But not always.
Whatever the case, I bathed, changed clothes, as the early winter weather was unseasonably warm, and set out in a drowsy evening shower, with the car and driver, for Merrick’s house.
It was dark when I got there, but even so, I could see that the neighborhood had deteriorated beyond my wildest speculation. It seemed as if a war had been lost in the district, and the survivors had no choice but to live among hopeless wooden ruins tumbling down into the eternal giant weeds. Here and there was a well-kept shotgun house with a bright coat of paint and some gingerbread trim beneath its roof. But dim lights shone through heavily barred windows. Abandoned cottages were being dismantled by the rampant greenery. The area was derelict and obviously dangerous as well.
It seemed to me that I could sense people prowling about in the darkness. I detested the feeling of fear which had been so uncommon in me in my youth. Old age had taught me to respect danger. As I said, I hated it. I remember hating the thought that I wouldn’t ever be able to accompany Merrick on this insane journey to the Central American jungles, and I’d be humiliated as the result.
At last the car stopped at Merrick’s house.
The lovely old raised cottage, painted a fresh