During the time immediately after my father’s change of state, Malcolm told him that his new life would be better than his previous one.
“We’ll never grow old,” Malcolm said. “We’ll survive anything — car crashes, cancer, terrorism, the infinite petty horrors of mundane life. We’ll persist, despite all obstacles. We’ll prevail.”
In Western culture, aging always means diminished power. Malcolm said they’d enjoy freedom from pain — and from love, the curse of mortals. They would live without what he called the ephemera: transitory concerns based on mortal personalities and politics that, in the end, no one would remember.
Malcolm spoke of mortals as if they were vampires’ worst enemies. “The world would be a better place if humans were extinct,” he said.
I took another sip of Picardo, which sent a tingling sensation through my body. “Do you agree?”
“Sometimes I’m tempted to agree.” My father waved his hand toward the shade-covered window. “When you walk around out there, you see so much unnecessary suffering, so much greed and malice. The abuse and murder of humans and animals — unnecessary, yet commonplace. Vampires — some of us — are always mindful of the ugliness. We’re a bit like God in that respect; you don’t recall that line of Spinoza’s, that to see things as God does is to see them under the aspect of eternity?”
“I thought we didn’t believe in God.”
He smiled. “We don’t know for certain, do we?”
But Malcolm didn’t mention the problems, my father said — the terrible urge to feed, the mood swings, the vulnerabilities, and all of the ethical implications of the change of state.
At first my father considered himself no better than a cannibal. Over time, he learned the truth of Bertrand Russell’s belief: by ordering one’s mind, happiness becomes accessible, even to an other.
One night when my father was half conscious, he called for Sara. Malcolm reminded him of it afterward. He said the only right thing was never to see her again.
“There’s a history that you don’t know yet,” Malcolm said. “Other vampires have tried to live with mortals, and it never works. The only alternative is to bite her. You could use her as a donor, so long as you never let her bite you. I personally would be disheartened if you made a woman one of us.” Malcolm was half-lying across a sofa in my father’s room as he said this, very like a character in an Oscar Wilde play — the consummate misanthrope.
At the time, my father thought that Malcolm might be right — the kindest thing would be for him to end his relationship with Sara. He agonized over how to let her know what had happened. How could he tell her what had taken place? What sort of letter could he write?
My mother wasn’t religious in a conventional sense, but she believed in a God among many gods, to whom she could pray in time of trouble. The rest of the time, she mostly ignored that God, as many mortals do. My father was afraid that his news could shock her into some irrational action. He considered never communicating with her again — simply moving to a place where she’d never find him.
When Dennis took over Malcolm’s role as caretaker, my father began to look at the problem differently. Perhaps there were other alternative actions. At any rate, it was clear to him that the matter couldn’t be handled by a letter. No matter what he might write, she wouldn’t believe it — and she deserved to hear an explanation face to face.
Some days, as he grew stronger, my father thought that he and my mother might be strong enough to weather the situation. Most times he felt otherwise. Malcolm had told him some odd tales while he was bedridden, and they persuaded him that any vampire union with a mortal was damned from the start.
So, for the time being, he told my mother nothing.
Surprisingly, Dennis raised the subject. “What will you tell Sara?”
“I’ll tell her everything,” my father said, “once I see her.”
“Isn’t that risky?”
For a moment my father wondered if Dennis had been talking to Malcolm. But then he looked across at his friend — the freckled face, the wide brown eyes — and he realized again all Dennis had done for him. Dennis was holding a vial of blood at the time, preparing to inject him.
“What’s life without risk?” my father said. “Nothing but mauvais foi.”
He reminded me that mauvais foi means “bad faith.”
“We need to spend a little more time with the Existentialists, don’t you think?” he said.
“Father,” I said, “I’d be happy to spend more time with the Existentialists. And I do appreciate knowing these details. I do. But I can’t bear the idea of going to bed tonight still not knowing about my mother, or whether I’m going to die.”
He stirred in his chair, and looked over at my now-empty plate. He said, “Then let’s move into the living room, and you shall have the rest of it.”
In the end my father didn’t have to choose a way to tell my mother what had happened. She took one look at him at the airport, and she said, “You’ve changed.”
Rather than bringing her back to Cambridge, my father took her to the Ritz Hotel in London, and they spent the next five days trying to come to terms with each other. Sara had packed carefully for the trip; she had a distinctive style, my father said, recalling in particular a green chiffon dress that rippled like romaine lettuce.
But she didn’t have any reason to dress up. Instead of going to the theatre, or even downstairs for tea, they stayed in their suite, ordered room service every day, and fought bitterly over their future.
When my father told her about his new state, she reacted as humans are said to react to news of a loved one’s death: with shock, denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, depression, and finally, some sort of acceptance.