Polidori in Granada: A Tale of Perverse Preservation

Villa Diodati, Lake Geneva June 1816

We have fled the dreary shores of England in this year without summer, housed in my Lord George Byron’s manse on the shores of Lake Geneva. Mustard-gray clouds and endless, bone-soaking rain choke the sky, and we have not seen the sun in months.

George assigned to me the room across the hall from his, so that I would have unfettered access with which to minister my medical faculties to him. Rather I think I was placed here to be at constant convenience to his Lordship, to bother and assault my sense and sensibilities. My few months in his service have been equal parts illuminating and intoxicating. I toddle behind him, patching him up from duels with angry husbands, or the warts that stay with him long after he’s forgotten a woman’s face. Perhaps he merely seeks to get his money’s worth, being as self-destructive as he is. That, his debts, and this weather have brought us here to Switzerland.

To save ourselves from madness, we contrived to play a game, a contest of sorts, to write the most frightful thing we could conceive of. I did well, atleast, in my opinion. I composed a tale of a Vampyre, civilizing the wretched creature, dressing him in fine silks and the manner of a gentleman. Transforming him from the skulking, hideous beast that prowls in graveyards, to one skilled in speech and manipulation. Yet, Mary surprised us all with her depth and grasp of the terrible; a man sutured together of many pieces, and resurrected in some unholy scientific manner.

The night after our show and tell, Byron cornered me in the hall. His eyes were glazed over from too much drink and opium, as usual, and he asked me for a sleeping draught. I told him it was in my professional medical opinion that he try to abstain for one night, and in response he became furious, snatching me up by the collar. Who was I, a little untalented upstart, to question the creative process of his betters? Then as suddenly as he had grabbed me, he kissed me firmly on the cheek and released me, saying “Tomorrow is a new day, dear Poli.”.

Paternoster Row, London April 1819

I must steady my hand to relate the ire I feel. Not 10 minutes into my morning walk was I when my eyes fell upon a print shop displaying the latest edition of The New Monthly Magazine. The paper read: The Vampyre- A Tale by Lord Byron. I hadn’t heard or seen his name in months, since having left his service.

I stormed into the shop, firmly relaying to the shop owner that I, John William Polidori, was the true author of the story there-in printed. He said he had never heard of me, and in a rage I picked up the nearest book to bash the papers arrayed in the window. Taken aback, the printer bundled me out the front door before he realized I was still holding the book I had weaponized. I decided it was my advance on the story I had written. It wasn’t until I returned home that I got a good look at it.

It’s called the Compendium Materia Medica, a collection of medicinal knowledge from the ancient far east. The irony is not lost on me that I would, even in a random fit, select a medical text. The book is full of many wondrous insights, though one fantastical substance caught hold of my imagination. The legendary “Mellified Man” is created by feeding a living human exclusively honey, then once deceased, steeping that body in a sarcophagus filled with more honey for a hundred years. Once fully fermented, the confection will cure anything, perhaps even death itself.

St. Pancras, London August 1821

I have done the calculations and realized there is no undoing my debt. Every effort I have made to produce a living through my writing has failed, soiled by my former employer, I shall not say his name. Long did I think I would live off the fat of him. Though we quarreled, this was so often a sign of his affections. He wrote to me after the publication of The Vampyre, claiming it was attributed to him without his knowledge. He even said he tried to convince the magazine to reprint the story with my name, but he expected I should thank him for all the free publicity it garnered, having been attached to him.

There is no use in it. I realize now I must make my escape, abscond, as when we once did to Geneva. Although having no possession of a great house myself leaves me with fewer options. I have decided to pursue a new great work, an art that will marry my doctoral learnings with my thirst for revenge. In short, I will find Byron and make him finally useful to the world.

I have also realized I must stage my own death. To do so, I have written a note to my father, apologizing that I cannot go on. Next to me will be found an empty vial with residue of prussic acid, implying my own poisoning. In actuality, a tincture of belladona will render me inert. I have contracted a few Resurrection Men I knew from my days in the medical academy. They will watch over my body once it is declared dead. Then I will be free to seek my future, and finally make something of this life of mine.

Messolonghi, Greece April 1824

I have found him. His eyes were struck with terror when he saw me. Having heard of my alleged death he thought I was the devil sent to bring him to the gates of Hell. His vulnerability was refreshing, though the sight of him disturbed me as well. His hair had thinned significantly, and the years of syphilitic infection had marred his skin. He was arrayed in the costume of the Greeks, determined to free them from their Ottoman oppressors, yet what did he know of the kind of fighting that took place on the battlefield, and not in a hallway or bedroom.

The climate had weakened him, no doubt the dirty water in camp carried disease. The idiot doctors attending him were bleeding him to starve the epileptic fit he had suffered 2 days prior. I shooed them away in broken Greek and knelt beside Byron’s sweating face. When I touched his brow, he softened. “Oh John, you’re real. You’ve come back to heal me”

“That’s right,” I responded, “I’m here to make it all better.”

“And then we’ll rout the Turks from this ancient land and live as gods.” His pupils dilated and he began to shudder. I calmed him by administering a dram of brandy. I stroked his matted hair until he fell asleep, then went out to the mountains to gather my supplies.

I heard the buzzing before I saw it. In the hollow of a cypress tree rested a colossal honey comb. I ordered the two men I had brought with me to cut it down, as I scouted for more. They gathered it into ceramic jugs to be brought back to camp. A patch of thyme was nearby, with oregano and wild mint scattered beyond that. This would be good, spiced honey.

I took over his care for his last few weeks of life. Following the instructions of the Compendium, I fed him only honey. In reality this would not cure him, but nothing would at this point. I told myself the sweet food was palliative. I told myself that the good I would do with his body, once transformed into the panacea, would outweigh the fact that I was killing him. I told myself my failure to obtain his consent paled in comparison to the mistreatment he had visited upon me. When the signs of mellification presented themselves and his death was imminent, I told him I would be stepping outside, for only a moment. When I came back, his spirit was gone, and I placed two gold drachmas over his eyes.

I had his body stored in a barrel to prepare for our travels. I had an identical barrel, filled with brandy and the body of an anonymous Greek soldier, sent back to England, bearing the name “Lord George Byron”. The double I had selected looked enough like Byron to begin with, and after a few weeks pickling enroute to burial in Nottinghamshire, no one would recognize the difference. After the decoy departed, The true George and I set out for our new home.

Alhambra Complex, Granada 1833

We have a little cottage in Spain. It is nestled within a pomegranate grove, among the gardens of the Alhambra, where I have found employment as a beekeeper.

I am renewed. It astounds me so– not only have I endeavored to build a new life and purpose for myself, I have discovered through my machinations a medicinal breakthrough.

I was prepared to wait. I knew the prescribed 100 years of fermentation could well surpass my natural life, and I had considered taking on an apprentice to complete my work, but fate forced my hand.

During the Napoleonic Wars, French troops occupied the fort. When they were forced to flee, several bundles of dynamite were detonated in an attempt to render the fortress unusable. As I was familiarizing myself with the gardens I was to steward, I felt myself drawn to a partially destroyed tower, its lattice work casting geometric shadows onto the grass. I thought that if I could climb the tower, I might get a nice view of the gardens, or even the city of Granada itself. On my way up, the stone I had hoisted myself up on came loose. My cheek scraped against the face of the tower as I scrabbled to hold on to it, and I slid to the ground, feeling my ankle break below me.

I dragged myself back to the cottage. In the middle of the floor, near the fireplace, a false floor concealed the secret, rectangular hole carved into the bedrock of the house. This was where my Lord was marinating. I had taken my first harvest of pomegranate honey, filled the chamber, and laid him to rest inside, ready to wait.

Having need of him early, I cracked the seal of beeswax, releasing a sweet and herbal odor from the sepulcher. He lay before me, a turgid golden, like the spoon sweets he’d supped on in Greece. The spice of thyme had done its work, though I was decanting him prematurely. My hand hovered just over the meniscus of the honey, the surface was so still, so calm, that I hesitated to break it.

With the blood pooling in my eye and the pain radiating from my foot, I dipped my hand in to grasp his, and brought it to my mouth.

When the pad of his thumb touches the inner membrane of my bottom lip, my vision is subsumed in golden light, and the whirling helices of a thousand generations of flowering buds offer themselves to my mind, as I connect with the first living dirt. Petrichor and molten sugar ravish my olfactory nerves, burning with nectar behind my retinas. Wind rushes around my skull, produced of every winged thing that ever quaffed on pollen. And the taste— a meadow bolted through with iron, cloying and sensuous, with every salt of shameful ecstasy as the sweat of a virgin’s breast. There is no world to me beyond the fizzing sap my mouth enfolds. I am a tongue that exists for enzymatic exchange.

I choke for lack of breathing and return from my senses. Subconsciously, I had closed my mouth tighter around his thumb, like a jealous calf stuck under his mother. My jaw would not unlock, and as I pulled away, my teeth scraped back the flesh, the texture of turkish delight, from the bone. There was no blood, as all of his secretions had been replaced with warm, watery honey. When I saw his partially degloved hand, I wanted to spit out the soft, sweet meat from my mouth, but my body would not let me waste him, and inevitably, I swallowed.

I collapsed onto my bed and fell into a deep sleep. Flashes of lightning rattled my dreams. Splotches of blue and gold faded in and out before forming any legible pictures. What I could hear was either muffled words or thunder. When I woke, I was fully mended and beautiful.

Zafarayya, Granada December 1884

The earth has revolted against those who walk upon her. Last night, Christmas, an earthquake of immense magnitude struck Granada, destroying thousands of residences. I have taken it upon myself to join the search and rescue efforts, and to put my medicines to the use of the good. I have found many so far amongst the rubble, though few of them alive. Their broken bodies are dusted with ground stone and snow in turn, and we know that they are human from the red stains of the crushed blood vessels.

There was a little girl I pulled from the wreckage of a collapsed church. I heard her cries and began digging. Her arm was bent in at an unnatural angle, her ribcage severely bruised, but none of her vital organs seemed to be damaged. “Maricela,” she weakly coughed when I asked for her name. I set her arm in a makeshift cast and delivered her to a convent for safe keeping.

After the long day of exertion, I had to return to my cottage. I had not had any honey all day, and I find that while the effects are stronger than ever, the time frame between necessary doses shrinks over time. This is worrying, as I fear the leash holding me to the house will tighten over time, but that does not scare me as much as the dreams.

What began as mere suggestions of night visions have grown far more vivid, and always the same. I am in the dark, on a stormy night in the Villa Diodati, and as I open the door of my room, there is Byron standing in the hall, covered head-to-toe in honey. He calls my name, says such kind things to me, “Where would I be without you, Poli?” His hand is warm when it touches my cheek, and he kisses me with his sticky mouth. “Remember your oath, good Doctor.”

I wake up with my face plunged into the crypt, gasping for air.

Alhambra Complex, Granada July 1936

I have, at a distance, kept an eye on Maricela since I rescued her. She grew to have a family, and her children beget her grandchildren. Two of them, Juan Carlo and Sebastian, stumbled onto my cottage last night. The moon was high and I could see in the silver light that Juan Carlo had a bleeding gash in his shoulder. Sebastian explained that earlier that day during basic training, for both of them had joined the nationalist armed forces, Juan Carlo had failed to keep up with the rest of his training group, and as a result, had been whipped by his drill sergeant in front of the other boys.

To help his brother, Sebastian offered to run additional practices with Juan Carlo that night, and in the process, still unsteady from his earlier injuries, Juan Carlo had fallen while vaulting over a tangle of roots, crashing into sharp rocks and ripping his flesh from collarbone to scapula.

For fear of further reprisal, the boys came to me, having heard through family legend of the secret doctor of the Alhambra.They asked me to bind the wound so that they could return to the palace barracks before sunrise. I did not have the heart to tell them such a serious wound would take more time, and resources than either of us had; with one exception of course.

Since the dreams began I have been hesitant to share my medicine with anyone, for fear that these nightly phantasms will torment them too. Still, I am haunted by Byron’s voice in my head: “Remember your oath.” I have sworn to do no harm, and so instead of feeding Juan Carlo the honey, I slather it into the wound, and wind it tight with muslin. He screamed for a moment, but Sebastian clapped his hand across his mouth, and the three of us heard no guards stirring from the direction of the barracks.

That night, I dream the same dream. I learn nothing new.

Realejo, Granada August 1970

I must be done with him. He stalks me in my sleep by night and in the light of day I have merely hours before I feel the core of myself collapsing, and I must partake of my daily communion. When I am freshly fed my body is stronger than ever, what I can see of myself in the mirror is more beautiful than I remember of my previous life. I am 175 this year.

For my birthday, I venture into the city. For safety, I bring a portion of honey in a canteen and hide it under my jacket, and walk to the Cine Madrigal. I have enjoyed the moving pictures since their inception, although I rarely have the opportunity to experience them anymore. Once I arrive at the cinema, it is clear that a festival is taking place, English language films from the 1930’s, a collection of horror films. One of the posters catches my eye– Frankenstein.

I buy a ticket, trying to keep my face obscured, and sit in the back of the theater. Slowly, I nurse my honey as the silver glow bathes me. As the film proceeds, I begin to weep. It’s all wrong, they’ve gotten Mary’s story all wrong. Her eloquent New Adam is reduced to a grunting brute. I cannot bear to witness this disrespect, and sneak out before the film is over.

I walk for hours, until I am out of the city, until my honey runs out. I keep walking, soon I feel the pain returning. I goad myself on, hoping that by sheer force of will I can outrun my need for him. Then my eyes begin to bleed, and legs buckle, and worst of all, I hear his voice. I cannot say what was more humiliating, my agonizing retreat home, or how good it felt when finally I gorged myself.

Alhambra Complex, Granada July 2033

I feed of him continuously. Like Narcissus at the water’s edge, I am locked with my face inches from the viscous surface. For fear of losing all my dignity, I exercise patience in the grueling distance between my hand and mouth, to avoid plunging face-first into the golden pool.

I have not slept, for as soon as I swallow the sweetness and feel the gentle, cloying burn subside from my throat, the craving starts again. I am grateful at least that I no longer dream, though I must do my best to not gaze into Byron’s face each time I partake of him.

I have not eaten anything else, I cannot go to the market, not even to my garden to pick pomegranates. Not that there are many left, the soil is scorched and dusty, no rain for months. I fear most days that the roof of the cottage will catch fire.

Everything I touch is sticky, and I have been neglecting the bees. As a result the honey is at a lower level than ever before, and Byron, though broken down as he is, consistently breaks the surface of the nectar. His body ripples as the earthquakes shake the foundations of our cottage. They come more frequently now, I fear that soon I shall experience one as destructive as the one that occurred on that dark Christmas.

Two men from the village affixed a garish orange sign to my door. Believing my dwelling had been abandoned, like so many other houses in the city, my cottage has been condemned to demolition. I wish I could leave. Perhaps I would make it to the garden, enough to wither in the sun, but even that would be excruciating. I have already been eating, exclusively, the honey for some time now. I expect the mellification process has begun within my own body, though I am not sure what doubled-effect such magic honey will render. At this point Byron had died, yet I remain conscious, though raving. No, my confinement shall be complete.

With the nectar depleted, there is enough room for the two of us. I will sink into the gold and drown in his confection. The world will collapse upon us, and our seal will be complete. Who knows what waking dream I will macerate in?

Should any survivors in need of medicine find this in the future, take of me what you will. Though be wary that he has melded with me, and I cannot be responsible for what he will do.

***

Lily Lalios is an English Undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where they are a Creative Non-Fiction Editor and Layout Designer on the 2023 staff of Furrow. They are also Editor-in-Chief of two online zines: Agapimeni Literary Magazine and Crushed Velvet Prose. They have two poems and one flash fiction forthcoming in Secret Words Vol. 5 from VA Press.