S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo...
     Is this heaven? Is this hell? I no longer know. I have hitched my reins to a new mount, and must follow where it leads. Even if I am the mount, far more than he...
     He has been distracted - almost beside himself. Almost, but not quite; Germanic, he has paced. Germanic, he has brooded. A prince attendant without valet, without court of his own, without title or lands; in exile, self-imposed or otherwise. And finally, hunger has driven him where nothing else might, from the solitude of his own weary and churning thoughts.
     The lower half of the club, first, with its pulsating music, gyrating bodies, dark corners and gripping, groping hands. Hansl has gone through, clad in black and white and scarlet; found some handsome young man with angelic eyes and a beautiful smile that promises sin. He never knew what hit him, had him, pressed in a corner with smothering kisses and roving hands. Noone is truly innocent, here, are they? But he received some pleasure in exchange for the blood he has no recollection of losing - and Hansl has another phone number which he shall not be calling. Brief interludes.
     It is terrible of me, ja? But my interest has been bent, turned aside. I do not know, nein, I do not know but that may well prove to be me. I must think. I need a drink.
     I need several drinks...
     There is a quieter area - the VIP area, for those willing to pay money for the privilege of wooing in more seclusion, of dealing or discussing instead of dancing. The pulse of music is felt through the floor, coming from below - but here there is only the faintest strains of music. A gold ornament on the end of his keychain is shown, and Hansl enters, past the guarded door, approaches the wooden bar. The bartender, by some tres amusee twist of fate, is named Rick. He only looks a little like Humphrey Bogart, and takes little interest in his clientele's problems. He nods as Hansl silently holds up a finger, then twirls it; signal for vodka. Bring the bottle and a glass, leave him alone. Got it...

     Vampires put the V in VIP...
     There are a few here. Can you, Toreador, feel them? The mortals can't tell the difference, but then they can't tell a good wine from a Coca-Cola, now can they? Not even here in Paris where they should know better.
     But I should not pick on them. They do not have my tastebuds, these gifts from God, these curses of the Devil. It ruins me for anything but the best. If I were a Ventrue, I should be dead by now for these...
     There is a look across the VIP room, one that says I know you, the focused stare of recognition. You, from court. The painter. The young man in the booth has several small glasses in front of him, all filled halfway with a clear liquid (grappa). He has brown hair cut this way and that, a red button down shirt and black slacks. His features, they are decidedly Mediterranean. His coloring is not French. It's not Italian. It is different, a carmel that speaks of dates stuffed with walnuts, dusted in cinnamon and drizzled in honey. Something of the desert, now cast forever in moonlight for this son of Morocco.
     You have some privilege. I am not certain from which it springs. Merely your sire? The guilt of the clan? Who knows. But it is a puzzle, and my mind is an active organ. One of the few I own.
     He lifts a small glass of clear liquid in toast to the Toreador across the way. He uplifts an eyebrow in question. What the question is...

     Ordinarily, he is only social in miniature. He attends court because he must, as a duty; he is here because he has fed, and because he has things on his mind. But - survival skills must, when one is one of the unliving, include social skills. Hansl catches the gesture at about the point when his vodka and his glass have been delivered, and there is that split nanosecond of hesitation. Vas is das? Do I go over? Do I remain here? Nein? Ja? And with a self-contained shrug, he rises.
     It is still not a Gallic shrug, of course...
     "Good evening," Hansl's voice is polite, the words pitched only once he is within 'normal' hearing range. Let us not startle the kine. "You seemed to seek my attention, ja?" The bottle is gestured; may I? "I fear I do not recall you. I am Hansl Arnaul." A sire's last name; his mortal name was lost, decades ago. Who he is... has been shaped by the thrust of his unmaking.

     "I am not a man who thinks that alcohol should be had alone. In fact," he smiles brilliantly, "I should not be drinking at all. It is against the tenets of Allah, but..." he laughs and reaches for a pack of cigarettes, "... I am not going to be seeing Him anytime soon so..."
     So, he drinks...
     Why not? As if wine shall be a greater sin than murder for food...
     "I am Al'alim. I have seen you at the museum," he nods. "I'm ... a cousin..." He grins again. "Of a fashion..." Fashion. Ha. That is a good one! "You do not know me?" He grins again. "You do not recall seeing my face? Well, I am usually in the Salon de Guerre." The room where armor of the ages is displayed. Where the fencers and academicians linger.
     "No matter, it is good to meet you now," Al'alim settles in the booth, taking a cigarette for himself. Well, maybe it is a cigarette. Maybe not. The outside of the cigarette is dark brown. The pack is full of Arabic script. It probably just means Lucky Strike, but it looks so much more poetic than that...

     Allah. What do I know of the followers of Islam? Hansl's ice-blue gaze withdraws inwards with a blink, and he nods once. Not much, apparently. Bottle and glass are set upon the table with infinite gentleness, infinite care, and the artist slides into the seat opposite. "I ... have seen you, I think. I do not come there often." Some say too seldom. That I must make myself known, a vigorous force, at Court. Some say many things.
     He picks at the seal on the bottle with the edge of his thumbnail, thrusting his lower lip out as he concentrates on his task; voiding the irritation which keeps him from his nectar. "I ... am always pleased, of course, to make the acquaintance of another cousin." He is distracted; by something more than the bottle. The top is finally opened, the contents, a healthy amount splashed into the glass with that careful hand, yet roughly poured.
     Mein gott... am I to come apart in my distraction? I must focus. I must think.
     He looks up with a gesture that sends the slightly spiked hair back from his eyes, eyebrows drawing slightly together. "Hm. I have been through the Salon. On occasion." A polite interest, dinned into him by those for whom instruments of war have been something other than academic interest. "I apologize for my lack of recollection, however; it is unthinkable. My mind is not muchly on that place, tonight."

     He offers the pack to you, a simple move of the pack toward you. It remains on the table. As he lights it, you may detect something of the desert there amid the tobacco. It is tobacco. Only slightly laced with hashish.
     A puff of smoke released, Al'alim relaxes back against the vinyl of the booth. He makes a slight wave of his fingers. "It is not the beginning or the end of the universe," he murmurs between you, barely the moving of lips. Those mortals gathered at the bar will miss it. Maybe not the ancilla in the corner. "That, one may say, is the space between a man's ears." He offers that to you as wisdom, the gestures of the eyebrows, the quirking of his lips, and the gesture of the cigarette confirm it.
     "I find Paris is not all that different from my Casablanca...I suspect it is not different from any other place where men congregate. You are an artiste," he half-asks. "A painter, right?"
     As he ends his question, he lifts a glass of grappa, one of the four that sit before him. He holds it beneath his nose for many moments. And then he finally sips it.

     The pack is accepted, the cigarettes examined. He does not refuse such, though it is an occasional vice only. A cigarette's shaken from the pack and procured, and the pack slid back. The ancilla is barely noted - but noted nonetheless. Neonates get into such habits...
     Flame grows and is used, heated smoke drawn between his lips and then exhaled out in a long plume to the side. Habits. Habits of a short life, and an unlife not yet made long. "Is there only space, and nothing solid?" Hansl inquires, glance flickering across the other man's features, to the gestures, the minutiae of signals, of symbolism. "I ... have never been to Casablanca. In truth, I have not traveled much. Though I am considering it." He nods. I am. I have decided; I should not lie. I am not considering it. "I am arranging," he clarifies. "To go. If I am permitted."
     To London... a city unknown to me, save in reputation and gossip...
     "I am a painter, ja. Perhaps not a good one," Hansl smiles a little at that, then closes his eyes. The cigarette is tapped; ash allowed to fall. He takes up his vodka. Such a combination that would make mortal men fall furious. "But I do paint. I seek to capture, with my art, as in nothing else. And you, mein herr? What is it that you do?"

     It is an interesting question. A man may have many occupations in a single mortal life, let alone a lifetime that stretches far beyond what Allah intended. "Casablanca," he says after a slow roll of grappa on the tongue, and then a single swallow finishes it. He sets aside the empty glass, "... is a dangerous beauty. Like Paris. Treacherous. But sensual. And the cigarettes are better."
     He smiles a full-lipped smile, his dark eyes swimming espresso in such a look. "I do not do much. I do as little as a man might do and yet be a man." He takes up his cigarette again, the smile remaining past the veil of smoke. "From sunset to sunset... each night is a new night. A new beginning. Or the chance at a new ending."
     He shrugs at that, non-committal to the rest. But he is not a Ventrue. He is not a Toreador. Perhaps most Brujah do not have past times.
     "Hmm," he sounds around the body of the cigarette, "... painting. In my culture it is next to a sin. It is said to be an insult to try to recreate the works of Allah." Eyebrows dance a moment. "What do I know, for all I know Allah is a fan of Monet..."

     "Perhaps I will find myself there, eventually." There have been others of my kind who have been there. Artists. Germans. Vampires. There have been movies made of such. "At present, I was considering somewhere a bit - closer to France." Sensitive lips quirk, the ice blue eyes narrow and then close as he leans back a fraction of an inch. "Across the Channel, ja? London. See what is in our back yard, before going ... further."
     As if I have not already decided to go as far as I must. Foolish Hansl. To give in so, to passion, to Art, to ... in essence ... him. I will break if I am not careful. I must remember some caution.
     Above all else, survival, Hansl. Do not forget that now...
     "To me, it is a sin not to attempt to capture and to recreate." Hansl grins a little at that, then examines the cigarette with sudden, wary respect. Vas is das? Nein - it is not the contents of the tabac, surely. More likely the workings of his own mind, working against him; stubborn, rebellious spirit, to ignore common sense so very thoroughly. "In truth, it is in part a commission which I am pursuing. But even if it were a sin - I suppose that I may see the sin," Hansl allows. "The artist's eye is a trained eye, nein? What God has made, none other should unclothe, to understand." He has ever been prepared to be voluble on the topic of art - it makes him the more animated. One hand gestures, the glowing tip of the cigarette tracing against the air. "And yet, is that not the entirety of human existence - to look, to seek to understand, if not to possess?"

     There is a roll of shoulders from your counter-part. "I am neither artist nor critic. And I am certainly not a prophet that I may seek to understand. But they say that is the curse of the European. To attempt to understand even that which is nonsensical. I have never been so similarly cursed."
     His lips make a small smoky smile, the scented veil leaving him. "Human existence... what it is depends on where you are standing." He pauses and grins. "Or sitting?" Al'alim's mouth quirks. "If you come to an understanding on the English or London... be sure to write me at court here and tell me what you have learned."
     Such a purr. He sets the cigarette in the tray to burn a moment, taking up the next glass of grappa. He lifts it in toast to you, toast to the air (or maybe to Allah. Or...maybe to the notion of sin), and then he begins the ritual of smell, breathe, smell, taste.

     "Sitting, standing, kneeling, depending upon one's perspective, ja," Hansl agrees. He is not humorless, but right now, he is so very, very serious. "I doubt that I am the person to talk to about the English. They are a confusing race, hein?" At least, the one with whom I have the most come into contact with ... the most intimately shared ... let us not think of that right now, Hans. "I am no philosopher. Though, perhaps an irony - it is the philosopher clan that I will be visiting, in the form of one of their members. He has offered to sit for me."
     He sets the cigarette down, allowing it to burn in a curl of smoke to fill the ashtray, and carefully he tilts his vodka to fill the glass. "If the European has a curse, I do not believe it is the need for understanding." Still so serious. Still so very intent. And yet - Germanic. And yet - less intense than perhaps a few weeks ago. "To understand is to take the essence of a thing, to condense it, ja? If I understand something thoroughly, then I may at once shield myself from it - it is no longer unknown to me - and consume it more thoroughly. Or be consumed by it, if it is of suitable nature. Is that not what we choose, with Art, with philosophy, with such intangibles? Emotion. Need. Intellect. But," Hansl chuckles dryly, downing the vodka with a sharpening of his gaze, "I am young yet. Perhaps I sound the fool."

     The second grappa is considered, then swallowed whole. He sets the glass down and espresso eyes look to you. "The Philosopher Clan?" He ponders that and then with a chuckle he smiles and takes up his cigarette again. "I do not think my brotherhood lacks for ideas. It's Thought that is contended."
     Al'alim taps away the brown and grey ash, "I do not think you sound foolish. Young," he grins at your call on that. "Not yet lacking hope in self or in others. If you can hold onto such feelings, then... who knows," another shrug, "...you may be the better philosopher..."
     He pauses, "Have you ever had grappa? It is too wine what your vodka is to... potatoes." He laughs smoke and then offers a glass of the grappa to you. "It is the... incandescence of grapes. Here, try this..."

     "I have not," Hansl admits. "There are many things that I have not tried." He finishes off the glass of vodka first, then takes the offered glass, sniffing it with a suspicion that he cannot entirely hide. It is Unknown. "Incandescence? Hm. I would have thought that would be brandy, or perhaps cognac." But he will try it anyway. What's it going to do - kill him?
     "I do not think that I am a philosopher. I am poor enough as an artist; let me not attempt to fail in two disciplines at once, hm?" France is rubbing off on him. Or the vodka, grappa, and hashish are. Hansl closes his eyes, rolling the drink around on his tongue. Sin, blasphemy, combining the tastes in his mouth - but he has a palate nonetheless. He explores the scent, the flavour before allowing it to trickle down his throat, even as he nudges the glass back towards the Brujah. Perhaps it's just getting laid that's caused him to relax a trifle. Only a trifle, but a difference...
     "I will be seeking permission and introductions - I wish to do things correctly." Hansl opens his eyes, then nods once, a brief jerk of his head as he then picks up the cigarette. "An interesting melange, mein herr. I would not describe it well, I think, without my palette - or at the least, my charcoals. It has a reminiscence of inks to it - blue-black and purple tones, spilled to capture light as a river at night."

     He seems to absorb your commentary as he might have absorbed the grappa before. "It has a dark tone to it, yes. As if the grapes were set on fire and burned. A smoky quality. All the essence of fruit is gone. What is left... is flame. But," he smiles quickly, "... all grappas are different."
     Al'alim stamps out the cigarette, the tendrils of smoke curling around his fingers and then dissipating in thin air. He lifts the final glass of grappa. He smells it. But it is such that he does not drink it. He merely smirks and sets it back down. "And this one... charred beyond recognition."
     His hands retract, folding below the surface of the table. "I wish you the best of luck in London. I hear it is very vibrant. There is youth there, and great age. But you will not be the only hopeful breath of spring there. It has been good to meet you," he offers you his hand. "Sadly, I must be on my way. It is time for me to turn toward Mecca and beg for forgiveness."
     With that, he is starting to stand.

     "Danke schon. I hope that you find some of the forgiveness which you seek." It is polite, but sincerely meant in its own way. He has foregone religion in the sense of his sire; but he understands it. "Gut nicht to you, herr."
     What have I done, after all, but changed my seeking to looking for forgiveness from those that yet remain rather than those that do not answer? Are all men gods, or is it that spark of the divine which I even seek? I do not know...
     Hansl remains behind, watching the other man depart without demur or surprise. In truth, his thoughts drag him inwards, tonight; internal, his thoughts, internalized, his desires. And he has vodka yet to help him with his thoughts.
     He is, after all, no poet.

Posted by rowan at February 14, 2006 09:12 PM