Part 12 - Training Claudia, Act 2

LV: Thirty years had pass, Yet her body remained that of an eternal child. Her eyes alone told the story of her age, staring from under her doll like curls, with a questioning that would one day need an answer.
 

INT. FLAT NIGHT.
.
Claudia is writing at a secretaire. She is writing in a diary with a quill pen in an adult hand. Lestat appears in the doorway. He has a big box in his arms.

C: Another doll, I have dozens you realize.
E: I thought you could use one more. (He hands her the box. It is a fine Parisian Jumeau doll. She likes it and stokes its face.)
C: Why always on this night?
E: Why what do you mean?
C: You always give me a doll on the same night of the year.
E: Oh, I didn't realize.

.

C: Is it my birthday? You dress me like a doll you make my hair like a doll, why?
E: (He examines the other dolls.) Some of these are so old, tatered. You should throw them away.
C: I will then.

(Music - Claudia's Allegro)

E: Claudia, Claudia, claudie, what have you done.
C: What you told me to do.
L: Leave a corpse here to rot.
C: I wanted, I wanted to be here.
E: She's mad,
L: Claudia
E: Once in the house we live in. Claudia stands up quickly, and strides out into the - PARLOUR, She walks to a mirrored cabinet, takes out a pair of scissors.
C: Do you want me to be a doll forever. (Lestat doesn't answer.)
L: Claudia don't.
C: Why not, can't I change? Like every body else? (She continues cutting. She sees Lestat emerge from her bedroom in the mirror behind her then turns to him, an angelic little boy's face now with soft curls around her face, she then runs into her room. Claudia Screams! She stands before the dressing-table, all her long hair grown back over her shoulders. She holds it with both hands, screaming and screaming. Lestat and Louis come through the door.)

C: Which one of you did, which one of you did it, which on of you made me the way I am.
E: What you are, a vampire gone insain that pollutes it's own bed.
C: And If I cut my hair again.
E: It will grow back again.
C: But it wasn't always so. I had a mother once, and Louie he had a wife. He was mortal same as she and so was I.
L: Claudie

C: You made us what we are didn't you. (She turns on Lestat.)
E: Stop her Louie.
C; Did you do it to me? (She runs at him with the scissors, scoring his face. The cut heals. She scores it again. It heals again. She stares at him in horror.)
C: (whispering) How did you do it?
E: Why should I tell you? It's in my power.
C: Why yours alone. Tell me how it was done.
E: Be glad I made you what you are. You'd be dead now if I hadn't like that damned corpse. Now get rid of it.
C: You get rid of it.

EXT. BALCONY. -NIGHT.
Louis follows her outside, onto the porch. There is an old flower-seller going by.
C: Tell me why, you got to tell me.
L: You see the old woman, that will never happen to you. You will never grow old, and you will never die.
C: but it means something else to you, that I shall never , ever grow up. I hate him. Tell me how it came to be that I am this. . . thing.

EXT. NEW ORLEANS STREETS. NIGHT.
Louis walking, holding Claudia as if he was about to lose her.
LV: For thihty years I had avoid that place, yet I found my way back there, with hardly an upward glance.
Louis back in the same street, outside the same house. He stands with Claudia at the window. Claudia stares at him, suddenly very cold, very alert. He can't go on. Claudia's eyes are remoreseless.
C: You... feed on me.
L: Yes. And he found me with you. and hee cut his wrist, and feed you from him, and you where a vampire then, and every night there after.
C: You both did it.
L: I took your life, he gave you another one.
C: (Claudia speaks through indrawn breath.) And here it is, and I hate you both. (She runs. )

EXT. STREETS. NIGHT.
Louis, walking the streets, shivering.
LV: I walked all night, I walked as I had walked years before when my mind swormed with guild at the thought of killing. I had thought of all the thing I had done, and couldn't undo. And I longed for one seconds peace.

INT. FLAT. NIGHT.
Louis enters, slidently, like a corpse. He hears a voice behind him.

C: Locked together in hatred. (He turns, sees her sitting in the darkness. She is wearing a tiny nightgown of stiched lace and pearls, wierdly adult and seductive. She comes towards him.) But I can't hate you Louie. (She whispers.) Louie my love, I was mortal to you. You gave me your immortal kiss you became my mother, and my father, and so I'm yours forever. But now it's time to end it, Louie. Now it's time to leave him.

L: He will never let us go.
C: (Claudia smiles.) Oh, really?