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Ivory and merlot ran on slick streets, mirroring the solemn marquee above it. It announced no performance, only offered shelter for theatre-goers and pedestrians to escape the rain beating on apartments. Their curtains rustled and lights dimmed. Rain sank through Antonio’s suit, the nicest he owned, mingled with the cheap cologne at his throat. A flicker of headlights, and Roderich, Erzsébet, and Gilbert appeared from a passing cab.
“Antonio!” Gilbert slapped his arm as Erzsébet smiled, but Roderich only nodded. He reached into his overcoat for an envelope, which he showed the doorman. He let them into the atrium, lit in soft champagne.
“I missed coming here,” Antonio said to Roderich.
“Yes, well, I thought we might all partake in post-war indulgence. Not that there is terribly much to indulge in.”
“It’s very nice.” Antonio nodded at the sprawling staircase to the mezzanine and frescoes of Medieval battles.
“Very nice!” Roderich scoffed and pivoted to Erzsébet. Antonio lowered his eyes. Rainwater from his hastily-polished shoes sunk into the malbec carpet. Gilbert’s scuffed boots appeared, and he nudged Antonio’s shoulder to offer him a chilled glass of white wine.
“Cheers, Toni! Happy end of the end of the world,” Gilbert said. Antonio forced a smile and clinked their glasses. How much wine to ease the cold, how much for heartache?
“What are we seeing?” Antonio asked. Gilbert produced a crushed, damp program from his jacket pocket. Antonio only read it not to look at Roderich. It was an experimental opera from Milan, which Gilbert remarked would probably be more insufferable than anything by Mozart or Beethoven.
“So, what is it with this place?” Gilbert asked.
“Oh, it’s part of that elitist music club Roderich is in,” Antonio said. “They have a few of these theatres in Italy, this is the only one in Spain. It usually is experimental opera or ones by new composers, at least that I’ve seen. He used to take me all the time.” Antonio forced a smile over his sigh. “Supposedly a bat lives in here, and if you see the bat before a performance, it’s good luck.”
Gilbert scanned the arched ceilings as he and Antonio took their seats in Roderich’s opera box. Antonio tensed when Roderich appeared with Erzsébet. His hand rested on her elbow, each finger poised as though he had dreamed of this touch nightly, as if something so small was all he could ever want. Did she know it? The scent of her perfume made Antonio sick, and he could not stand to look at her. Instead, he glared at the catwalks above the stage.
From silken shadows came a flitter of movement. Polished shoes, the flick of pale fingers. Just someone tending the lights.
Roderich murmured in Erzsébet’s ear; she tucked her hair back and laughed, smiling at Roderich. He was shocked that she smiled at him, shocked by her sweetness, like Adriatic figs, he delighted in it and dreamed of summer. And as he did, Antonio had no other thought than that he could not sit and watch Roderich fall in love with someone else.
Antonio lied about needing the bathroom, tramping on Erzsébet’s foot as he went in search of loneliness. He ducked beneath the mezzanine steps and fumbled in his pockets for cigarettes, damp with rain. As he did, he studied the painting opposite him, another battle scene. Blood dripping down Ottoman blades like veins, spotting hands and in the hair of the man beneath them. His dark eyes were open, though his neck was severed.
“What is it that you’re doing down here?”
Antonio started. A man stood in the shadow of the steps, a glass of wine and play pamphlet in his right hand.
“I… Was just admiring the art,” Antonio said.
“Oh, yes. Conquests of Mehmed the II. This one,” he gestured, “is the Ottomans killing Vlad Tepeş. It’s said that they cut his body into pieces and sent his head to the sultan,” he said. “Do you know who Vlad Tepeş is? Or rather—perhaps you’re more familiar with his patronymic—Vlad Dracula?”
“What, like Dracula?” Antonio wanted to find somewhere undisturbed to mourn his lost chance at love, but the stranger said,
“The only share a name,” Romano corrected. “In any event, this one has gotten disgusting, since nobody will clean it. I think they believe it to be cursed.” He chuckled to himself, and Antonio forced a laugh and admitted that the painting did seem like it might be.
“Don’t be stupid, it’s only a painting,” he said. “Though, I suppose it is a bit morbid for the delicate public.”
“I doubt the public is all that delicate, after the war,” Antonio said. “I… my dear friend used to send me letters from the front, and what he described, just… And the photographs of the bomb sites, I, I thought the world was ending.”
He scoffed. “Every civilization thinks it will be the end of the world.”
“Well, eventually one will be,” Antonio said. “Why not ours?”
“Aren’t you morbid. How morbid, I wonder?” His gaze trailed along Antonio as fingers skimmed on still water. “Oh, have I gone and scared you?” When he stepped forward, light from the crystal chandeliers fell upon his face. What words could Antonio assign a face like that? He could not think of anything as beautiful between the stars or far below the sea.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” he whispered. No embrace or kiss could carry the comfort of his words.
“Who are you?” Antonio whispered too.
“Romano.” He extended his hand and Antonio kissed his ring. Romano’s knuckles were cold as the metal and its wine-dark stone.
“I'm, I'm Antonio.”
Romano nodded. “You’re pale. Maybe some wine would do you well,” he said. “I own a flat upstairs, if you would follow me.”
"Sure." Antonio faced the dirty fresco a last time before following Romano. Vlad Tepeş’ open eyes, his head clutched by an Ottoman warrior as another hacked through his throat. All their hands running with veins of hot, sticking blood.
Antonio followed Romano up the mezzanine steps, away from Roderich, Roderich and Erzsébet, huddled together in the darkness before the curtains opened.
Romano unlocked a narrow door in the upper hall, up creaking steps that were steep enough to knock Antonio’s shins to a railed landing with a battered door. He unlocked it with the same skeleton key, gesturing Antonio inside. Stiff wood groaned underfoot, hidden by worn rugs and a collection of comfortable armchairs. Madrid’s backstreets winked through the seam of dark, drawn curtains.
The floorboards did not creak when Romano entered. After lighting a corner lamp, he reached into a cherry cabinet for wine and two glasses. The wine bottle in Romano’s slim hand was unlabeled, its thick glass murky with age.
“You don’t mind missing the show?” Romano asked, pouring two glasses. He offered the first to Antonio, who sank onto the divan. Where most wine was bitter, Romano’s was like ripe plums and Daphne flowers; it must have been aged for decades.
“Did you just bring me up here for wine?” Antonio asked.
“I thought it would be obvious that I have other plans.”
“Ah. I… I’m not sure…” Antonio frowned into his wine. One of Romano’s hands lay palm up on his thigh, fingertips curled slightly, as if in invitation for Antonio to take it. Antonio had not held anyone’s hand in years. He thought of Roderich, and clenched his hands in his lap.
“Are you in love?” Romano asked. His hand was still, but it beckoned, beckoned for the warmth of Antonio’s. Without losing Romano’s eye, Antonio slipped his fingers through his. Romano ran his thumb up Antonio’s forefinger. A shiver reverberated in Antonio’s body, not from intimacy but because Romano’s touch was cold as polished marble.
“No,” Antonio said. “I thought I was. I wish I was.” Romano’s fingertips played along Antonio’s knuckles. He was so close that Antonio should have felt his body heat. Nothing about Romano was right, he was a familiar word penned in an unfamiliar hand, a map whose cities were marked wrong. And yet Antonio held tight to his hand.
“You thought you were?”
“Yes,” Antonio said. “Even, even on the night we met, I thought I was in love with him. He was so handsome, and I still remember how he said it when he told me he loved my voice. He told me so many things, and I…” Antonio’s eyes fluttered closed.
“He doesn’t love me.” Digging his nails into Romano’s knuckles, Antonio shut his eyes tighter and kissed him. Though Romano’s kiss was addictive, his lips and tongue were biting cold. He was gentle, but not warm, not sweet, and Antonio did not know him. He wanted to kiss someone he loved, someone warm who adored him more than midsummer.
Antonio bit Romano’s lip hard. Romano shook his head.
“Don’t bite.” He almost smiled, as if trying not to laugh at some private joke. Antonio apologized and leaned away. Romano passed a hand over Antonio’s hair, down around to his throat, stroking his jugular vein. Antonio moved toward him as if Romano had him on a string.
“Did you think of him when you kissed me?”
“No.” Antonio pressed himself into Romano’s touch, though goosebumps rose on his skin. “He’s… Maybe I don’t even love him, I just, I want to be in love so badly, so, so badly…” Antonio cradled Romano’s hand against his cheek in both of his.
“You’re so cold,” Antonio said. Why was everything so cold? So cold and lifeless, the darkest hour of midwinter when nothing survived.
Antonio squeezed Romano’s hands in his. Though Antonio could not have been older than twenty-six, his hands had worried over too much too often, and were not those of a young man.
“That won’t do anything,” Romano said.
Romano pitied him and all those more willing to find the future in flowering fruit trees than accept unrequited love. But then, there was satisfaction in sadness, and Romano knew misery. Had invited it in and given it warm tea, for it had traveled so many miles by train and ship and steamer. Romano had kissed misery’s cheek in a silent plea for it to stay with him forever. And of all misery’s company, Romano truly did have forever.
“Yes it will,” Antonio said. “I’m worried for you.” Antonio gripped Romano’s hands to his chest, laying the back of his free hand to Romano’s cheek. Antonio’s eyes widened as his thumb pressed into Romano’s wrist. He shifted his thumb up, down, and squeezed Romano’s hands harder and harder.
After a frustrated sigh, Romano asked, “where did all your worry run off to?”
“I…” Antonio clutched at Romano’s hands. It might have been funny imagining Antonio’s thoughts if Romano had not endured this same scene several times over.
“May I show you something, Antonio?”
Antonio rose from the divan, following Romano into his cramped study. Here the windows were obscured by books and mountains of papers, manuscripts and maps. Antonio waited at the threshold while Romano heaved the bookcase aside, careful of the desk. The edge of a gilt frame stared out from a dirty wall.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a man like you has a portrait in the attic.”
“Maybe so, but I’m no Dorian Grey. I’m a different kind of monster,” Romano said. Antonio drew close to the door as Romano pushed the book shelf aside, revealing a portrait. Unlike the fresco of Vlad Tepeş’ death, the surface was clean, though the oils cracked. Once the paint had been rich, vibrant in warm afternoons when the apricot and orange trees were flush with blossoms.
“You… you have quite the doppelgänger,” Antonio said. “How old is that? It must be worth thousands.”
“I don’t intend on selling it,” Romano snapped. “Among other things, it was done by my little brother. In fact, this was the last piece he did for our family before he left for the Republic. Venice, that is. He played Venetian the rest of his life, though Naples was our native city. I’m not sure what he felt home couldn’t offer him, as our family was quite well-off. That is the first thing Dracula and I share: nobility.”
Fear and disbelief twined around Antonio’s features.
“When was that painted?”
“October the second, 1525. Well, that was when it was finished.” Romano sighed and pushed the bookcase back into place. He pivoted to Antonio, whose hand rested on the unlocked door.
“Are you… are you going to kill me?” Antonio asked.
“Would I tell you if I were?” Romano drawled. Antonio shrank back. “I’m not thirsty. Look.” He touched his face. Would it frighten Antonio when he realized that the flush in Romano’s cheeks was not his own?
“I told you not to be afraid, Antonio. Sit down, I’ll pour you more wine.”
Antonio slumped on the divan, sipping the wine Romano offered. Poor Antonio. Romano knelt on the carpet beside the divan and kissed the edge of Antonio’s collar. Antonio reached for him, another cold thing in a cold darkness. He still didn’t understand, he whispered. His voice hummed beneath Romano’s lips.
“What… What are you?”
“There are lots of names for us, pick whichever you like,” Romano said.
Antonio shook his head. “Were you… bitten?”
“Yes, a long time ago,” Romano said. “But that was all a precursor to what I wanted to say. When I was younger, I worked with several scientists in the Black Forest to try and gain some insight on my, condition, they called it. I was still fascinated with science back then, now it bores me—”
“Half to death?” Antonio asked.
“You have a terrible sense of humor,” Romano said. “As I was saying, it was tricky work to analyze vampire venom, it ruins almost everything. All that trip did was give me an intense dislike for Germans, everything else I’ve deduced on my own time. For instance, what particularly fascinates me is this.”
Romano balanced Antonio’s fingertip on his lower canine. Salt on his fingertip, the biotic salt of blood. Romano quaked at the thought, at how hard Antonio’s heart beat, the rouge of blood in his face. Romano pricked Antonio’s finger, and Antonio winced and yanked his hand back, but after a moment his expression softened with wonder.
“It feels good, doesn’t it?” Romano murmured. “I wonder what it does. I thought it might have something to do with biopsychology, but I haven’t pinpointed exactly what.”
“Why are you telling me any of this?” Antonio asked.
Romano settled on the plush divan beside Antonio.
“I like your smile,” he said. “I— After the life I’ve had, I can appreciate people who smile like you, even though cheerful people drive me to the brink of madness. Along the lines of, it takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.”
“I don’t know that I’d say I ‘love the world,’” Antonio said.
“Hm. It only seems like you want to love it. Like you just want to be in love, but, I suppose it is difficult to love the world just now, and you don’t have any lover.” Romano nudged Antonio’s cheek, and his throat closed around his next words. “I know I won’t be the one to make you happy, but I hoped some company would do you well, and maybe this, too.” He nodded at Antonio’s red fingertip.
“I think you think I’m a better person than I am. Just now, I… Roderich’s in love with this woman from Hungary, and he’s so happy, and I know I should be happy too. But I don’t want him to be happy with someone else, I want him to be happy with me. I would rather he be miserable than in love, and I can’t stand her, even though she’s always kind. And I feel so awful for it, but…”
“Don’t feel awful. If I were in your place, I’d probably make her life a living hell just to put a smile on my face.” Romano sighed. “I hate to see people like you languish over unrequited love. Find someone who loves you, Antonio. Don’t spend what precious time you have on him.”
“But I still love him. I do.”
“Well, he doesn’t love you. Go put on your dancing shoes, get out of your flat, and find someone else,” Romano said. “But for now…” Romano’s lips fell upon Antonio’s throat.
Antonio tensed at the touch of Romano’s teeth in instinctive need to protect each vein feeding his heart and lungs. His precious life, right beneath Romano’s mouth. Romano sank his teeth into it, and Antonio dug his nails into the divan. Blood surfaced on Antonio’s skin like pomegranate seeds. Romano licked them away, but winced.
“You drink too much,” he said.
Antonio sighed. “I know.”
Romano sat up and eased Antonio’s head into his lap. Antonio’s eyes were closed, his lips tinged with a smile. It was wrong to give Antonio another high to chase, but what else could Romano do? His fingers idled along Antonio’s cheek. He truly did love Antonio’s smile, and how softly he kissed.
He asked Antonio what he was thinking about. About all his life, all the precious details that Antonio had remembered through all his years. His memories sung with old fears, with questions of how many breaths he would take, how many times his heart would beat, if he would ever fall in love again.
“But if I can meet a vampire, surely I can find someone.” Antonio laughed. He laughed with his whole body, and when he smiled his nostrils wrinkled slightly.
“Well, at least you’ve gotten a lesson from this.” Romano stroked Antonio’s forehead, and Antonio sighed.
“Why didn’t you drink me?”
“I do not ‘drink’ people,” Romano said. “I don’t kill everyone I meet; immortality gets lonely, I like company. But eternity isn’t always so awful as people make it out to be, besides all those friends dying, and I do have to be invited into places. I couldn’t even enter my own flat alone at first.” Romano sniffed, and Antonio chuckled.
“So all that’s true? Can you see your reflection? What about crucifixes? Holy water? Garlic?” Antonio gasped. “I can’t imagine living without garlic.”
“Crucifixes only bother me if they’re silver or iron, holy water does nothing, I can see my reflection in anything but silver, and garlic makes me incredibly sick. It also makes blood bitter.”
“So if I don’t want a vampire to drink me, I should carry around an iron crucifix and eat a lot of garlic?”
“Astounding all the nuances you’re picking out,” Romano said. For once he smiled at Antonio, but it slipped when Antonio asked about when exactly he had been bitten, and by whom. “October, 1530. By my lover, the contessa from the south. We wanted to be married. We wanted forever, and she could offer it to me. But she got tired of an eternity without sunlight. She said she wanted to see her family again.”
Antonio fumbled to put a hand on Romano’s knee. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not sad. I still remember her well, I could never forget her face.” But he had. He only remembered Feliciano’s on the night he had laid fresh oranges upon Romano’s empty grave because Romano had not been there to see the orchard bear fruit that winter.
Romano put his hand over Antonio’s as applause sounded from below.
“The play is over.” Antonio struggled to sit up. “The play is over, shit, what will I tell them?”
“It’s only intermission,” Romano said. “You can go if you wish, but you may stay, if you’d like.” He held a little tighter to Antonio’s shoulder. He would miss Antonio tomorrow, his warmth and laughter. But there would be others, and Antonio ought to be with someone like him, just as in love with love.
Antonio stayed until the curtain call, when he sat up and meandered to the door. Romano stood at the threshold as Antonio vanished down the hall, the narrow steps, back into the lobby where Gilbert waited with crossed arms.
“Where the hell were you?” he demanded. “You made me watch an opera with Roderich, alone. I almost died.”
“Well you didn’t, and I’m here now,” Antonio said. Gilbert grumbled, and Antonio’s smile fumbled when Roderich turned to him.
“I’m glad you got a bit of fun tonight, I know opera was never your style,” he said.
“Well, you do know me,” Antonio said. Roderich took Erzsébet’s hand, and Antonio pushed a smile past his heartache. It seared his throat, all anger and dread, though his anger was gentler after being with Romano. It may not have been real happiness, but Antonio clung to it with all he could and tried to remember what it was to feel happy.