To Enrique Rambal Sacia
and his father, the man of magic.
Now, I fear, I need to talk about the vampire. I am aware vampires are a lower form of life, and their stories hold souls by a thread. This vampire, however, possesses the unfading power of seduction, and I surrender to him.
So, I will begin the story and seize the castle through the drawbridge. The vampire owned a sordid Valencian castle. It had interior galleries and trapdoors, cellars, dungeons, and guest rooms. The wailing and supernatural sounds faded long ago. Now only verses by Lorca and the sharp aroma of valerian herbs fill the air surrounding it.
The vampire I evoke—in a billowing black cape with a green neck band—was as pale as a ghost, with icy hands and a wide and translucent forehead that gleamed, crossing the beautiful surface like fish in water. This was the noble vampire—a count or a duke, I’m not sure which—romantic, distinguished, and exuding melancholy. Whenever he spoke, the nostalgia flowed from his mouth recalling a weightless being. This incorporeal entity traveled through the castle atmosphere and coiled in the visitors’ throats like river mist, inviting them to cry an unstoppable flow of tears.
Sitting in the moonlight and darkness, the lord revealed what his own idea of love was. His conception was part bitterness, part schmaltz. He used an easy grammar for his poetry. He raised his slender hand, his neck like a dying swan, giving his profile to the play of light and shadow. As he sunk his ears into his cloak, he made the age-old wood of his chair creak. “Oh!” he moaned, and then the palace creaked and groaned in chorus, gathering the anguish accumulated in the joints of the stones.
The master asked for a drink: a blackcurrant potion was served to him with a siphon. He moistened his thin lips—not kissed for such a long time—and savored his beverage, remembering his past with sight and soul. In the midst of a prudent silence, he appeared to suffer: Oh, the love that left and did not return! After he reverted to his normal self, the vampire watched the mint leaf churn in the fiery waves of a sea of blackcurrant. He drank to speed up the shipwreck, sighed, and then exclaimed: Oh, the love that disappeared into thin air!
He went to the piano and start playing Chopin’s waltzes. The sadness that remained in the depths of his spirit was pulled away by the flickering flames of the chandeliers, the earthy glass obscured the nocturnal garden from view, the smell of tuberose and camellias and the rain. He was suffering, letting the perfumed breeze of his gray hair fall upon the keyboard. His mane was soft, and its fragrance helped him to remember.
This was the vampire. For dinner, he had his ritual: red tomatoes dressed with red vinegar, accompanied by garnet wine, with cherries in syrup for dessert. The main course, a filet barely singed on the grill; a thick and bleeding steak. The vampire sighed and said his ambition had been evicted by the humble, reverent longing invented by Lorca, and it now stretched out among lemons and lemon verbena. He also wanted a rose bush to grow from his chest, and his eyes to turn into stars. He wanted to cry with Marianita Pineda and to hide behind a tree when the knives from Blood Wedding flashed. Oh! Blackcurrants Wedding, more accurately.
In the midst of reverie and irresistible sorrow, he was a very fine and discreet man, yet not too handsome, with pockmarks on his brown face, with a dead serious sense of self-importance, which was his nature . . . Oh, his tyrannical, rebellious nature! He threw a dart at us after a social dinner: “Where are you going, siguiriya, with a headless rhythm? What moon will collect your pain of lime and oleander?” Did we know the girl he was talking about was a gypsy? Young, flexible, she had passed the ruffles of her flowered skirt over his face, and she sang for him—in glorious intimacy—tarantas and soleares. Finally, as a lascivious woman, she had offered him her neck to be bitten. A gypsy woman known alternatively as Estrella, Esmeralda, Azucena, who carried in her the blood of kings. The vampire, who tasted her, was assured of it. “Oh, Pharaonic beloved, mist of the past! Where could I find her?”
Upon reaching the abyss of grief, the vampire wiped away a tear. We felt moved. I asked for the Complete Works and read it at random: “Under the orange tree, she washes cotton undergarments. She has green eyes and a violet voice. Oh love, under the blossoming orange tree!” Nervously, he nibbled at the edge of his green neck band. His elegance trembled with a mighty sob. The tiny craters of his eyes filled his face with water. He was dressed up, the front of his shirt and eyes sparkling like snow. He looked at us, one by one, hoping to find understanding. He found it straightaway, and his tears turned into drizzle.
The wolves howled outside the castle. The air was split into shreds, mists came and went. The people outside believed they were afraid. In front of the impressive gate, locals crossed themselves. The ladies accompanied the procession of Our Lady of the Abandoned, while the devout gentlemen rambled on about exorcisms, blessings, and anathemas. They even secretly proposed the idea of taking the Holy Grail out of the Cathedral, using it in the procession, in front of the castle, perhaps stopping for a few moments under the family crest brandishing a flying bat. Then, the procession confronted the watchtowers with the flag . . . They would see if the impiety of the monster still resisted! Nothing would daunt the faithful, so long as they insisted on fighting against the evil slipping away from the walls of the castle.
The suffering and sensitive nobleman—he could have been a count, duke, or marquis—was intoxicated with memories and saudades, and night after night, day after day, he roamed through the halls upholstered with scenes from the Middle Ages. That was the way he was.
With the blustery and clean wind, two pheasants fly through the towers.
Reprinted with permission from The Voice of Blood by Gabriela Rabago Palafox, published in © 2026 by the University of Tampa Press. All rights reserved.
