This is a sort of take-off from the song challenge, using a poem instead of a 
song.  Many thanks to all those who encouraged me to write something else for 
the fiction list, and for those of you who hoped I would never inflict any of 
my work on the list again, better luck next time.  Especial and eternal thanks 
to my trusty editor, Jen Lackey, whose wheedling to me to write something for 
goodness' sake is the prime instigation of this piece.  Please do take the 
time to drop me a note and let me know what you think of the story.  If I 
don't hear from you, I'll assume you hate it.  ;)  The address is 
welshkin@dfw.net.  And now without further ado.... 
 
 
 
Poem AMORES II by e e cummings. 
 
 
 
Rarely-Beloved 
 
A Vignette 
 
by Sarah Welsh 
 
welshkin@dfw.net 
 
 
 
 
 
**************** 
 
in the rain- 
 
darkness,       the sunset 
 
being sheathed i sit and 
 
think of you 
 
**************** 
 
 
 
He had been prepared for the aching numbness of her loss, the emptiness in his 
hollow sham of a life, the void inside that defied fulfillment once Natalie 
was gone.  He had steeled himself against the inevitability, imagining the 
lonely years that lay ahead of him, barren as a desert, every moment peopled 
by the ghost of her.  He had expected to see her face at every turn, in every 
play of light and shadow on the wall, hear her laughter, almost feel her touch 
upon him as he lay in his narrow bed, the touch he had never known outside of 
fantasy.  He had been prepared for all that. 
 
 
 
What he was not ready for was the guilty, grief-ridden bewilderment of 
forgetfulness.  After the first bleak days of his bereavement, which had 
passed in a dark blur, he had begun to live again.  It was only brief moments 
at first, when an unexpected flash of beauty or pleasure fell like lightning, 
startling him out of his memories to an instant of laughter or wonder, leaving 
him with a quick, hot shame when the memory of what he had lost returned.  But 
then came days when the ache receded into a thin murmur for hours at a time as 
the cycles of sunset and sunrise wore on and despite himself he again took an 
interest in the world that turned around him.  And it was an expanse of time 
so short that it horrified him to realize it before the cool touch of 
Janette's hands, the sight of her slim white body, the elegant purr of her 
accented voice awakened the old fires within him.  As his hands fumbled at the 
fastenings of her dress, out of practice, the spectre of Natalie's reproachful 
face which he had tried to keep always before him was swept into the darkness 
of centuries of memories by the hot passion of the moment.  Janette was here, 
and Natalie was not.  And with the fickleness of the survivor, Nick inevitably 
moved on.  The dead, because they are frozen, are ever faithful. 
 
 
 
LaCroix had mocked him, gently.  To think that he could be tied to a mortal 
with eternal bonds.  To think that his precious Natalie would not be relegated 
to the harem of his mind with Erica, Sylvaine, Gwyneth, Amalie, so many whom 
he had loved and lost.  But he had thought that Natalie was different, that 
she was forever.  It had pained and confused him that life went on without 
her.  He had thought that she *was* life. 
 
 
 
The wind blew a gust of raindrops into his face where he sat in the window 
casement, and he closed his eyes for a moment and enjoyed the sensation.  He 
was glad it was raining; the heavy clouds made it possible for him to escape 
earlier the prison of his curtained hotel room.  The burning sun made only a 
smudge behind the storm as it sank obscurely into the west.  The discomfort 
was there but very slight, just enough to remind him of what he was.  In an 
odd way, he liked the pain, the tingle that danced over every centimeter of 
his exposed skin.  In the early days after Natalie's death, he had flirted 
with the idea of ending it all, the eternal dance of moon and stars, 
considered letting the tingle ignite to flame, watch the fire consume his 
supernaturally powerful body, and finally dissipate in a whiff of smoke and 
ash to whatever rest or torment awaited such as him.  No more.  The night 
still had meaning for him; despite his early paroxysms of grief, he wasn't 
ready to leave it yet. 
 
 
 
But it did bother him that he wasn't able to remember her face clearly or the 
sound of her voice.  There had been so many faces and voices; when he tried to 
recall one in particular, it inevitably blurred with so many others.  Trying 
to remember a conversation with Natalie, he would find it suddenly, dream-
like, veer into a discussion he'd had with Lilli.  Tracing the details of her 
face, he would be unable to separate the eyes from those of Jeanne d'Arc, the 
smile from Serena's.  There were too many memories for him to resurrect one at 
will from the dank graveyard of his subconscious.  The only way was the 
overpowering sweep which overtook him without his volition, carrying him 
suddenly back through the years in its undertow, leaving him just as suddenly 
stranded on the dry shore of the present.  Those came only when his brain was 
jarred by an event or a sight, triggered by an outside sensation that sent him 
into an unbroken reverie on the past. He could not control when or how these 
came, but he had learned where he was most likely to brush against the hair-
trigger that would bring her back to him.  That was why he was here. 
 
 
 
**************** 
 
the holy 
 
city which is your face 
 
**************** 
 
 
 
Jerusalem.  Odd that this city, of all places, made him think of Natalie.  A 
city she had never visited, never even mentioned to his recollection.  Yet 
something about it was like her, sent tremors dancing up the cobwebs of his 
nerves and sinews, and struck Natalie like a single note of music in his mind.  
Like music, the memories when they came were evanescent, but while they hung 
heavy in his senses, they possessed a clarity and intensity that he could 
never duplicate by wandering the clinical recesses of the coroner's office 
where he had first and most often seen her.  The last time he had been there, 
years ago, its tiled floors and sterile walls had rung with the bustle of busy 
people who had never known a Doctor Lambert, a Detective Knight.  A friendly 
but preoccupied young woman had asked if she could help him as he stood cowed 
by the impersonality of the place; he had murmured a quick negative and faded 
back out into the night.  Natalie was not there. 
 
 
 
But here, here in this city halfway around the world, her face met him around 
every corner.  He would not ask why; he would just accept the gift gratefully.  
Every several years, out of the midst of whatever life he had built up for 
himself in whichever country he inhabited, a restlessness would seize him, and 
he would leave his occupation, his friends, whatever lover he might have 
happened to take, and retreat here to keep his ghostly tryst with Natalie.  
These times in Jerusalem centered him.  Janette was amused by the ritual she 
did not understand but appreciated the peace it invariably brought him.  On 
those occasions when it was her arms that he left, she only smiled and let him 
go; she knew that he would come back to her eventually, in a month or a 
century -- it made little difference to her.  Once, several years ago, when 
the little hotel he frequented had been on the verge of being demolished to 
make way for a shopping mall, Janette had bought it for a ridiculous sum of 
money to make sure that it remained for him; his customary room was kept empty 
at all times, awaiting his return whenever he wanted it.  She dismissed the 
gesture as a whim, but his gratitude ran deep.  They both knew that it was 
more than a building that she was preserving. 
 
 
 
If he had been buried in the blind earth, he would have known the instant the 
sun slipped finally beneath the horizon behind its veil of cloud.  There was 
now no danger of a sudden shaft of light slipping through a chink of the storm 
to burn him; he could venture out to walk the streets in safety.  In a fluid 
movement, he rose from the window and paced across the room toward the door.  
He paused a moment before the mirror, his eyes casually accepting the image 
that had changed so little over the centuries.  The fashions shifted over the 
years, his hair was shorter or longer, sometimes he was bearded and sometimes 
not; but the face and body that were reflected in the mirror were always the 
same beneath their various guises, whichever name he signed in the register.  
The bright blue eyes, the cherubic face, the strong, trim, young body.  The 
same Nicholas that Natalie had known.  He had never known the ravages that age 
had put on her.  For a few years after he had left Toronto, they had met 
again, face to face, but he sensed her growing discomfort, her misplaced shame 
at the new wrinkles time had creased in her lovely face.  Finally she had said 
that she didn't want to see him again, that she wanted him to remember her the 
way she was, that she couldn't bear to grow old in the sight of his eternal 
youth.  He told her, truthfully, that she would always be beautiful to him, 
but he had not pressed her to do something that would make her unhappy.  
Instead, he sated himself in the last years with conversations by telephone, 
pretending for her sake not to hear the cracks age wore in her voice as well 
as her skin.  It would have been easy for him to watch her secretly, but he 
didn't do it.  He hadn't even gone to her funeral.  Natalie wouldn't have 
wanted it. 
 
 
 
**************** 
 
your little cheeks the streets 
 
of smiles 
 
**************** 
 
 
 
So it was always the young, strong, exuberant Natalie that he remembered as he 
walked these streets.  Passionate, headstrong, determined.  Laughing, talking, 
grinning wickedly at Schanke.  Yet it wasn't the younger parts of the city 
that reminded him of her, where the lights glowed and the sleek buildings 
spired up toward the stars.  Instead, he walked the ancient streets where the 
dust that was kicked up during the day lay trapped against the walls and 
pavement beneath the damp of the rain, the sections where the plainer people 
lived, not the trendy inhabitants of modern Jerusalem.  The part of the city 
that, in the darkness, looked almost like the Jerusalem that had been when he 
himself lived a mortal life and walked in the sun. 
 
 
 
Vampires had to become accustomed to change, but it was still difficult for 
him to imagine a Jerusalem at peace, growing, building, bustling.  The city, 
for so many years, had been the site of war.  His own Crusades, of course, as 
well as warfare stretching back far more ancient than even LaCroix.  The 
Hebrews seizing the sleepy town from its native Canaanites and building it 
into their capital city.  The siege of the Assyrians and later destruction by 
the armies of the Babylonian empire.  The Jews returning to the ruins many 
years later and braving conflict with their neighbors to raise it again, only 
to see it destroyed once more by the Romans.  Literal millennia of warfare, 
all the way through the continual struggle between Arab and Jew during 
Natalie's own lifetime.  The three faiths that had vociferously laid claim to 
it, each in the name of God. 
 
 
 
Peace lay over the city as incongruously as would a thick snowfall.  Jerusalem 
had not yet grown accustomed to itself as what its name claimed:  a place of 
peace. 
 
 
 
A sudden shimmer of raindrops in the streetlamp, and Nick fell back against 
the nearest wall, his eyes staring blindly into the night.  The rain nestled 
into his golden hair and painted down his face -- he had not thought to bring 
an umbrella -- but he was insensible.  He saw her, smiling, glancing up at him 
in a mixture of familiarity and shyness, her face warm with the casual 
affection they had both so taken for granted.  The vision hung a moment in the 
air and then streaked away with the rain, leaving him breathless.  That had 
been all: no motions, no words, just the smile.  But it was enough. 
 
 
 
**************** 
 
your eyes half- 
 
thrush 
 
half-angel 
 
**************** 
 
 
 
He took to the air after a little while, dancing with the raindrops in the 
wind.  There was a park of sorts at what had once been the outskirts of the 
ancient town.  Not a large park, but large enough that it retained the 
illusion, when one stood in the midst of it, of expanse; if he tamed his keen 
hearing to human levels, he could almost believe that he was truly in the 
Palestinian countryside rather than the heart of a city.  He skimmed the 
treetops a moment before he set down, making certain that there would be no 
witnesses of his arrival, and frightened a small bird from its sleep.  
Twittering, it rustled panicked from its leafy perch and winged frantically 
into the sky.  Nick smiled after it as he felt the ground reach up to set 
itself firmly under his feet. 
 
 
 
No, it was not a large park, but Nick liked it.  The landscape took on 
anonymity in the watery darkness, the trees softly blending, the paths weaving 
a nameless web, the rises and falls of ground that might have been landmarks 
in the sunlight gently fading one into the other.  On one of these hills, a 
cross; in one of these swells, a tomb.  That was what had kept him away from 
Jerusalem for so many centuries.  Even when archaeology had led him from time 
to time into the Middle East, he had not dared enter the Holy Land.  His 
colleagues had murmured to see him turn down plum sites in the area of 
Jerusalem; but he had never offered a word of explanation, and this latest 
eccentricity paled in comparison to the others that were eventually accepted 
by the mortals with whom he worked.  It was not until after Natalie had gone 
that he had ever set foot within the city.  It had been LaCroix' idea then, 
and Nick, too overcome with guilt at his inability to separate her face from 
the others which haunted him to care much about anything, had given in with 
lassitude.  It mattered little to him at that point whether he burst into 
flames for daring to walk on holy ground. 
 
 
 
But it was Jerusalem that had given Natalie back to him.  He had found her the 
first time while trailing behind LaCroix and Janette through a moonlit alley 
and grew almost wild with joy as he continued to find her in groves and 
shadows throughout the city.  LaCroix, disgusted with his child's excesses of 
emotion, had left the city shortly thereafter, taking Janette with him, but 
Nick had stayed for months before he rejoined them where they were staying in 
Paris.  LaCroix greeted him with sneers, but he had been so radiant with his 
discovery that even his master and nemesis could not goad him into ill temper.  
Jerusalem had given him Natalie, and Natalie had, in turn, given him 
Jerusalem.  He had forgotten his reflexive fear of the place in his first 
ecstasies at rediscovering her, and by the time he was no longer giddy, he 
could not muster even a twinge of discomfort.  Jeanne had given him a wooden 
cross when she was martyred, but it was Natalie who had finally taught him not 
to fear it. 
 
 
 
Her eyes.  Smoky with meaning, large, warm, liquid.  The way they looked up at 
him in complete trust, knowing what he was and yet accepting him anyway.  
Loving him anyway.  The fleeting messages they exchanged without words in a 
crowded room.  The tears with which they brimmed when he told her he had to 
leave.  And then the image faded, and he was only staring into the darkness of 
a shadowy grove. 
 
 
 
**************** 
 
           and your drowsy 
 
lips where float flowers of kiss 
 
**************** 
 
 
 
In the center of the park, there was a fountain.  The machinery was stilled 
for the night, and the pool stirred only with the raindrops that were falling 
more slowly now.  It made no difference to Nick; his golden hair had already 
been matted to his head with the wet, and he scarcely noticed.  Even to a 
mortal, the rainfall would have been only pleasantly cool.  Twining from the 
ground around the edge of the pool was a dark, dry vine dotted with desert 
flowers.  The blooms seemed to yawn more widely to drink in the rain, and 
drops pearled on the smooth slopes of their petals.  Nick sat on the damp 
stone and carefully plucked a single blossom in his hand.  Its color was 
delicate, fragile-looking, belying its hardiness to bloom in a dry land.  One 
side of his mouth twisted into a smile: the flower was like Natalie.  Her 
softness, her beauty, overlaying a personality as strong as oak.  He had 
thought life would be barren as a desert without her, but he had forgotten 
that even deserts have their flowers.  He set the blossom gingerly onto the 
glassy surface of the pool and watched it twirl away with the whisper force of 
his fingers.  The rain had almost stopped now, and the dark mirror of the 
water was spattered only with a few heavy and intermittent drops.  The pale 
flower glided across the darkness of the night sky and then eddied onto the 
reflection of his own face. 
 
 
 
The softness and warmth of her kiss, the few times he had allowed himself to 
taste it.  That one sweet Valentine's Day when they had almost given in.  The 
hungry searching of her lips against his, the tentative touch of her tongue, 
her breath sweet against his face, all of her, soft and supple, in his arms.  
He let out a muted cry as he fell to his knees beside the fountain.  Never 
again had he been able to look at her face, her lips, without imagining her 
kiss, reliving it over again in his mind.  The times he had watched her 
sleeping, tracing with longing eyes the full curves of her mouth, the soft 
strands of hair that swept over her peaceful face.  The countless dreams of 
her.  The memory faded and with it, the warmth that he had almost felt of her 
closeness.  Blindly, he reached out as if to stay her, but his hand only swept 
the chilly waters of the pool.  As he came to himself, the ripples carried the 
floating flower spinning crazily against the far wall. 
 
 
 
**************** 
 
and 
 
there is the sweet shy pirouette 
 
your hair 
 
**************** 
 
 
 
He sank closer to the ground and turned his back to the cold stone of the 
pool, settling back against it with a breath that was almost a sob.  It was a 
pain, yes, but only the sweeter for its hurting.  Pain, after all, was a part 
of the memory.  The continual longing he had for her that could never be 
satisfied, the times he had hurt her, the times (so rare) that she had hurt 
him.  The distance they had had to put between them, the things he had wanted 
to say to her but hadn't been able to, the things, in turn, that she had 
assuredly held back from him.  He found his fingers idly combing through the 
short grasses, plucking up clumps from the newly-moist ground, and consciously 
stilled them.  Instead, he raised a hand and ran it back through his damp 
hair, shaking loose raindrops from the ends.  Feeling a sudden tickle against 
his cheek, he turned his head to see one of the pale flowers nodding at him 
from the vine that clung so tenaciously to the arid stone like a small mouth 
ready to whisper secrets into his ear. 
 
 
 
Natalie at his side, her curls brushing against his face.  All the times that 
he had yearned to hold her, to kiss her, to crush her to him, and had 
contented himself with caressing her soft hair.  She kept it controlled and 
tidy, swept up at the back of her head, practical and professional, but he had 
dreamed of removing the pins one by one, slowly untwisting the skein, watching 
the ringlets loosen themselves as they tumbled down over her shoulders.  The 
one time he had seen her in the sunlight, felt the warmth beating down on his 
own skin without a hint of flame, her hair had been alive, glowing with dark 
gold, so bright he was afraid to touch it; as she moved, the light danced like 
fire.  But the fire faded to darkness with the memory. 
 
 
 
**************** 
 
and then 
 
 
 
your dancesong 
 
soul. 
 
**************** 
 
That, he thought as he pushed himself slowly to his feet, would alone be worth 
standing in the sun.  He remembered the mixture of awe and sharp jealousy as 
he saw her bathed in the sunlight and realized that mortal men could see that 
every day, that they in fact saw it so often that they noticed nothing 
remarkable about it at all.  With the retreating memory twinged a pang of his 
old ache toward humanity.  He had never told Natalie, of course, but when he 
left her, he had abandoned his quest to become mortal again.  At first, it 
astonished him; for centuries, that had been his one goal, his heart's desire.  
But in those precious years in Toronto, the dream which he had pursued for so 
long had become entwined inextricably with the woman who searched to fulfill 
it and who had, in turn, become his heart's desire herself.  Natalie had 
become mortality, and mortality had become Natalie Lambert. Without her with 
whom to share it, mortality meant simply death. 
 
 
 
The clouds were beginning to part as Nick turned his steps back toward the 
hotel, and a star shone through the thinning veil with a sharp, pale light.  
He would call when he got back to his room, he decided, and book a flight back 
to Capri where Janette was waiting for him.  If he packed his bags during the 
daylight hours, he could be ready to leave by sunset.  He stopped just at the 
end of the hotel drive and turned to look up into the night.  "Bye, Nat," he 
murmured.  "See you soon."  He was ready to go ahead with his life once more 
until the next time Jerusalem called him.  And Jerusalem would always be 
waiting. 
 
 
 
**************** 
 
           rarely-beloved 
 
a single star is 
 
uttered,and i 
 
 
 
think 
 
      of you 
 
**************** 
 
 
 
THE END