Chapter Text
Tuesday, October 31, 1964 – East Hampton Village, Long Island, New York
Hannibal Lecter stood at the back window on this last night of October and looked out on a world shivering on the edge of winter. It was the kind of evening the boy liked best. Cold wind rattled the dead flower stalks in the garden and shook the maples’ naked branches, freeing the last of their dry leaves and sending them fluttering through the air into the night like birds. Suddenly the boy pulled the window curtains and closed out the night.
He walked to a stone fireplace and picked up an iron poker, prodding the logs till the red coals crackled into a blaze. He held out his hands to the fire’s glow and felt it reaching out into the sitting room and kitchen of what had been, until a hundred years ago, a farmhouse. The owner of the house had put a new gas heater against the wall, but the boy loved the warmth of a fire and the sharp smoke-smell of burning maple logs.
A few more steps took him around a coffee table and a rocking chair to the gleaming metal dials of a stereo. He raised the volume and sound flooded from its speakers. Liszt’s Piano Concerto Number One, played by one of the world’s great symphony orchestras, swelled and throbbed into every corner till it seemed the tiny house itself was the orchestra. The glorious sound wrapped around him till his heart and the music beat as one. He raised the volume further and the music soared even higher. No neighbor would telephone or pound on the door to complain of the noise. The nearest neighbor lived a quarter of a mile down the lane filled with dead leaves.
The boy stood motionless in the middle of the room in near dark as dim red light flickering from the fire wavered the shadows back into the corners.
He waited. Soon the moment for which he had waited so many days would come.
Starting early this morning, he had cleaned the house. He had dusted and polished the unpainted wood surface of the simple furniture. The floor and the furniture, already polished by the years, now shone in the firelight. Even the braided rug under the gateleg table, said to be a hundred and fifty years old, was almost restored to its colors since the boy had taken it outside and beaten it free of dust. In the kitchen, separated by a wooden counter, the metal of a modern range and refrigerator glinted in the fire’s glow.
The boy walked to the kitchen counter and opened a paper cake box, carefully lifting a small cake thick with pale blue frosting onto a plate. Into the cake’s gleaming, rippled-satin surface he slowly pushed fourteen tiny white candles, standing them upright in a ring. Thirteen candles to represent his age, and then “one to grow on.” He hoped to someday reach his father’s impressive height of six foot tall. The remaining candles he returned to a drawer. He struck a wooden match, the first of three it would take, moving the flame as quickly as he was able, to bring all fourteen candles alive and dancing with fire.
He carried the dazzling cake, but instead of taking it directly into the parlor, he crossed to the dark corner by the front door where, under a coatrack, a long mirror glinted. In the wavering candlelight his hands and face seemed pale, white as wax. His blonde hair was now touched with streaks of gold and copper, and the candlelight seemed to dance in his brown eyes. He had put on his nicest dress shirt and slacks for this occasion. He was officially a teenager today, which was practically an adult. Looking at himself in the mirror, turning his face this way and that, he thought he did look a bit older today. “Happy Birthday,” he said to the boy in the mirror, and smiled at his own reflection.
He carried the cake to the coffee table while music throbbed around him, and the night wind tearing at the house soon filled him with a joy so great he closed his eyes trying to hold in his happiness, to keep this moment from passing.
Facing the fire, he set the cake on the coffee table and then knelt down, tucking his feet under his legs. He stared at the candles, watching the tiny flames dance. He reached over and, with his hand, set the chair rocking. Again he shut his eyes, feeling himself part of the fire’s warmth, the candle flames, the music, and the night wind. It was all so perfect. He thought up a wish and took in a deep breath, ready to extinguish the candles, only to release the breath suddenly at the sound of someone pounding on the door.
He sprang to his feet and lowered the music’s volume. The pounding repeated. He went to the window and pushed the curtain aside and peered out. In the windy night a tall man in a raincoat stood at the door. Lit by a strange orange light, he seemed to glow and waver like the candles on his cake.
He knew more knocks would be coming, so he reluctantly moved toward the door where, sure enough, three more bangs sounded, even louder than before.
“Yes?” he asked at the door.
“Mr. Lecter?” The voice on the other side of the door was unknown to the boy.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Mason Verger.”
Verger? The boy’s forehead furrowed as he tried to think why the name sounded familiar. Then he remembered the real-estate woman who had leased the house to his father was named Verger. This must be her son. What could he possibly want? The boy stood motionless. He knew the man would not go away till he had opened the door.
“Just a moment,” the boy called.
He raced back to the small table next to the rocking chair and opened a cigarette box that was sitting there. From a package of Gauloise, he drew out a cigarette and leaned into the flames of the birthday cake. The tip of the cigarette glowed as he drew on the cigarette. Refraining the urge to cough, he blew the smoke into the air above him. Doing a quarter turn he repeated this, and did it twice more, sending smoke into the four corners of the room, before hurling the cigarette into the fireplace and running back to the hall.
He turned the lock and opened the door and watched with dismay as the wind sent leaves skittering across his clean oak floor.
The man standing on his porch glowed in the dark because he was holding a pumpkin that had been scooped hollow and had a burning candle inside that shone flickering light out through two eyes, a nose, and an enormous grinning gash of a mouth cut through the thick pumpkin flesh.
“Trick or treat,” the man said loudly so he could be heard above the wind.
”What?” the boy asked. But it was not because he could not hear. He starred at the man in confusion as cold air swept into the house.
“Trick or treat,” the man repeated, thrusting the grinning pumpkin face at him, as if this explained his presence here.
The boy searched unsuccessfully for some explanation as to why a grown man was at his door saying “trick or treat.” He made no effort to conceal his confusion or his shivering. The precious moment he had worked toward all day, like the warmth in the house, was draining away into the cold. More than anything else at this moment he wished for some way to make this man go away.
“It’s Halloween!” the man said loudly with too much exuberance.
“It is,” the boy agreed cautiously, wondering if he dared put his hand on the door frame, a move that would block the one step which would bring the man from the porch through the door.
The man moved before he did. Only one step, but already he was leaning into the hall, peering into the sitting room.
“Somebody’s birthday?” he said, spotting the cake.
The boy hid his hands behind his back as they tightened into fists.
“Is it your birthday?” the man asked, grinning at him.
The boy nodded, opening his fists, working hard to hide his annoyance at the intrusion.
“Well Happy Birthday!” the man exclaimed loudly, stepping through the door and shutting it. “Don’t want to let the heat out,” he added as he walked past the boy and into the parlor to get a better look at the cake.
“Thank you,” the boy said politely, keeping his voice flat to give the man no encouragement beyond the barest civility. Maybe he would get the hint and leave. “May I tell my father what you want?”
“Besides your birthday, tonight’s also Halloween,” the man said, walking around with a nervous kind of energy, looking at everything. “You know, Halloween. Trick or treat.”
Though the boy knew it was Halloween, it still didn’t explain the man’s presence. When he made no reply, the man seemed to feel a need to explain.
“My name’s Verger. Mason Verger. Your father knows me,” he said, still looking around. “My two kids will be here any minute. They’re out trick or treating. Right now they’re down the lane at your neighbor’s waiting for the candied apples Mrs. Goldstein just made to harden. What I’m doing is I’m sort of acting as an advance scout. You know,” the man said, smiling broadly, “to make sure any houses they try to trick or treat don’t have any real goblins.” The man giggled.
The boy was certain he had never heard such a silly sound come from a grown man. He searched the man’s face, trying to read his intent, which was difficult as the glow from the pumpkin he was still holding was reflecting off his round, wirerimmed glasses. “Or make sure there are no dirty old men who try to give candy to little boys and girls, right?”
The man giggled again, and it made the boy’s skin crawl.
“What a smart boy you are! You’d be surprised,” he said. “There are some pretty creepy people. Even right here in the village.”
The boy nodded. He was beginning to see that.
“You’re from Lithuania, right?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t they have Halloween in Lithuania?”
“They do.”
Mason nodded. If he expected the boy to elaborate, he was sorely disappointed. “Tell your father you’ve got company,” Mason said.
The boy stood motionless near the front door, seething at this man who had entered his house without even asking permission and who was now walking across his shiny oak floor leaving wet footprints.
The man went to the window and shoved back the curtain and shaded his eyes to look out through the glass. His breath misted the window the boy had washed that afternoon. “The kids should be along shortly. One’s dressed up like Frankenstein’s monster. The other one’s a green skeleton.” Pretending to shiver with fright, he giggled again.
The boy remained in the hall, staring at him. He hated this man’s giggle, and he hated the smell of his cologne, sweet and heavy, that hung in the air like a noxious fume.
Finding the boy staring at him, the man walked over to the gateleg table and set the pumpkin down. With his left hand, on which an unusually large gold wedding band glinted, he smoothed his wind-blown hair while with the other he drew a tube of lip balm from his raincoat pocket and ran the glistening balm over his full pink lips. It was like looking at the trail of slime left by a snail.
He slipped the ointment back into his raincoat pocket and asked, “How come you’re not out trick or treating?”
“I’m too old for that.”
“Really?” the man said, using the pretense of looking at the cake again to move closer to him. “Fourteen candles. Fourteen is too old to trick or treat?”
The boy just shrugged. He wasn’t interested in carrying on a conversation with this man.
“Well my kids are five and seven and they love to get dressed up and go out and get candy. When they get here they’ll be expecting a treat, otherwise we may have to play a trick on you,” he said, wagging a finger at him playfully.
The boy frowned. The man left a five and seven-year-old out there alone? He couldn’t really picture this man as the father of two children. Compared to his own father he seemed more like a child himself than a parent. A child who reeked of cologne.
“I don’t have any candy,” the boy said. “I wasn’t really expecting any trick or treaters out here since the houses are so far apart. Do you think they might like a piece of cake?” he asked, feeling sorry for this man’s children.
“But that’s your birthday cake,” he protested.
The boy walked past the counter into the kitchen and got a large knife and some wax paper, then knelt before the cake and unceremoniously blew out the candles.
“You shouldn’t,” Verger said.
“Shouldn’t what?” asked the boy, who had already drawn a careful line with the tip of the blade across the satiny frosting.
“Cut it. Just for them, I mean.”
“They won’t like it?”
“Sure they will, but . . . it’s such a pretty cake.”
The boy drew the knife through the snowfield of pale blue.
The man turned back to the window and looked out into the night. “Where’s your mother?” he asked casually.
The boy frowned, concentrating on cutting the cake. “My mother’s dead,” he said, lifting the first wedge of cake onto the wax paper.
“But your father’s here though.” The man sniffed the air in an exaggerated fashion. “He smokes. French cigarettes, if I’m not mistaken. Am I right?”
“He prefers French cigarettes to the brands here in America, yes.”
“Why isn’t he here celebrating your birthday with you?” he asked, moving away from the window and watching the boy lay a second wedge of cake on waxed paper.
“He wished me Happy Birthday earlier. He’s working now.”
“Upstairs?”
“No, in his study.”
“My mother tells me he’s a poet. My mother’s the real-estate lady who leased your father this house.”
“I know,” the boy said, standing and handing the two pieces of wrapped cake to the man, hoping he would leave now.
“Oh, the kids are gonna love that,” he said reaching for the offering. His hands brushed the boy’s slender white fingers. Almost dropping the cake, the boy pulled his hands away. He searched the man’s face, wondering if the touch was intentional.
“Looks like the weather is clearing up,” the man said innocently, back at the window. “No more rain tonight. Just mud puddles for the kids to splash through.”
The boy returned to the coffee table, picked up the knife and waxed paper, and carried them into the kitchen
“It’s so quiet here,” the man said, and for the first time his voice was hushed. “Listen. Sometimes from this house you can hear the ocean. Tonight all you can hear is the wind.”
From the kitchen the boy watched the man across the room at the window.
“Most people think it gets lonely out here in the winter,” the man said, making shapes in the patch of mist with his finger. “Actually you and your father are lucky to be here this time of year. As soon as fall comes all the summer people pack up, put up the shutters and dash back to New York City, or wherever it is they come from. Winter comes and all the Jews pack up move down to Florida to wait out the cold, finally giving the place back to the natives. Back to us Wasps.”
The man looked down at the cake again. “So, you’re fourteen?”
“Yes.” Could the man not tell he did not want to talk?
“Your father’s name is Lukas Lecter, right?”
“Yes.”
“And yours?”
“Hannibal,” the boy said reluctantly.
“Hannibal. Unusual name. But I suspect you’re an unusual boy,” he said, studying the boy’s face.
In the fireplace a log burned through and fell, rolling burning coals onto the hearth. The boy moved swiftly from the kitchen to pick up the iron poker. He pushed a glowing coal under the grate.
“So, just you and your father live here?” the man asked, watching him.
Hannibal did not reply but lifted the lid of the wood box and placed another log on the fire.
“Just the two of you?” the man asked again, moving closer to the boy.
“Yes.”
Mason moved to the rocker and set it to rocking.
“His chair?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t like for anyone else to sit in it, right?”
Hannibal shrugged in the direction of the man wishing his children would show up so he would leave.
With the back of his hand Mason stopped the chair’s rocking. “Some people have a superstition about rocking a chair when no one’s in it.”
Hannibal did not turn from the fire.
“Are you superstitious?”
Silence.
“You should be superstitious,” he said. “After all, it is Halloween. You should also have a black cat. A black cat is practically obligatory for tonight.” He glanced around as if to show the boy he expected to find a cat here in spite of his denial. “No cat at all?”
“No cat.”
“What about a dog?” he asked casually.
“No.”
“I thought all little boys loved dogs.”
The boy crossed to a corner by the wood box and knelt down to open a small wire-mesh cage.
“What have you got there?”
The creature the boy held in his hands was the man’s excuse to edge nearer.
“A hamster. My father bought him for me to keep me company when he’s working.”
As Mason maneuvered for a closer look at the rodent, Hannibal forced himself not to recoil.
“What’s your name?” Verger asked the hamster, stroking the rodent’s head with a finger, but his eyes were on the boy.
Hannibal turned his body slightly sideways, away from the man’s hand, and stroked the hamster’s head himself.
“Got to have a name. Come on, Hannibal,” he said softly, edging closer. “Tell me what it is.”
“Mažuti.”
“Mažuti? What kind of name is that?”
“It’s Lithuanian.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means little one.” The boy was talking to the tiny creature whose whiskers twitched, not to the man. Hannibal put the hamster on the table near the cake. The hamster raised his head and his beady eyes surveyed the mountain of pale blue frosting. It moved closer to the cake and stood up, its front claws sinking into the frosting.
“Are you going to tell your father I’m here?” the man asked curiously.
“Not when he’s working.”
The man watched the boy as he watched his pet for a long, silent moment. “Anybody ever tell you you’re a very handsome boy? Pretty hair. I bet you got your hair from your mother,” he said, his hand reaching out but stopping short of touching. “A handsome boy like you—don’t you have a girlfriend to share your birthday with?”
The boy and his pet, in a world together, closed out the man. Hannibal leaned over the table to pet Mažuti while the hamster cleaned the frosting off its front feet.
Mason studied his hair, golden strands that looked like spun silk. “Come on, I bet you’ve got a girlfriend. Lots of them. Good looking boy like you,” the man said, his voice deepening slightly.
Suddenly Mason reached down and slapped the boy on his ass. Hannibal wheeled around to face him, eyes wide with shock.
Mason laughed, a wheezy laugh that was as annoying as his giggling. “It’s okay,” he said with his hands up in surrender, backing away from the boy’s thunderous expression. “I get to spank you on your birthday. One slap for each year and then one to grow on, so you actually got off easy,” he said.
The boy’s eyes blazed so that they took on an almost reddish hue.
“It’s just a game,” Mason protested. “A birthday game! Hopefully you didn’t think . . . Wow. Look, I’ve got two kids of my own,” he said, retreating back to the window and peering out. “In fact, here they come now!” His cry was almost jubilant as he moved past the table and scooped up the glowing pumpkin. He shoved the wrapped cake into his raincoat pocket mashing the two slices. “Thanks for the treat. No tricks for you, I guess!”
With long steps, Mason reached the door.
“Tell your father I’m sorry I missed him.”
He flung open the door. Outside two costumed children holding hands waited in the blowing leaves.
Before walking out the door Mason looked back and shouted, “Happy Birthday, Hannibal! I hope to see you again real soon!” followed by another one of his annoying wheezy giggles that grated on Hannibal’s nerves like nails on a blackboard.
The boy did not thank the man. As Mason hurried out the door, Hannibal quickly shut it behind him and turned the lock, giving a sigh of relief. The man’s visit had unsettled him. He then went back to the cake and picked it up, carrying it to the kitchen where he tossed it in the garbage. He hoped that Mažuti had at least enjoyed it.