Harlequin's Riddle

Chapter 1 - The Players Arrive-4

‘Ciao, Uncle.’

‘Ciao, little one.’

‘I’m not so little anymore, Uncle.’

He nodded.

‘Do you remember how Paolo went away?’ Mina continued. ‘I … I need to go away for a little while too.’

Uncle Tonio turned his sad face to her, his jaw loose.

Words stumbled from Mina. ‘I need to live away from Andon for a while … I just … I’d like to see the world. I might be able to find Paolo. I’ll look for him, maybe bring him home. I won’t stay with the players long, it’ll be okay … I’ll find a story teller and …’

Uncle Tonio leaped to his feet and screamed. ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ Spittle flew from his lips. ‘Don’t be the fool.’

He grabbed Mina and pulled her up, gripping her shoulders. Words spilled from his mouth, but she could make no sense of his babble.

‘Let it go, let it go, let it go,’ Tonio said, his voice rising almost to a scream. ‘Lost, you’ll be lost. River is too wide … can’t swim. Don’t sleep. No dreams. No dreams! Which way home? I’m lost. Damn pretty eyes, drown you. Dreams die. Stay, Columbina. Too dangerous. Dangerous roads. Dangerous, pretty river.’

Tonio continued his broken spill of words. He released Mina and slumped to the cobbles, crying and muttering. Mina knelt to comfort him. He was all skin and bones in her arms.

Behind her, Mama spoke. ‘It’s his grief speaking.’

Uncle Tonio had been like this since Aunt Ana’s death. Mina had never understood how grief could turn your mind and break your spirit.

She took both her uncle’s hands in her own. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be perfectly safe. I have to live my own life. I want to become someone. I’m sure part of you understands that.’

Tonio focused both eyes on her. It was disconcerting when Mina was used to her uncle looking in two directions at once. Usually you had to guess what he was seeing. Now there was a sharp intelligence in Tonio’s focused stare.

‘They taste it. The longing. They want it. Let it go.’

One eye slipped away and Tonio was gone again. Mina kissed her uncle on the forehead and saw a drop fall onto the cobbled ground like a stain. She wasn’t sure if it was spittle or tears. Then Tonio looked up, his gaze unfocused once more, and taking Mina’s hand, he pulled her into the house, pushing past Mama to take her up the stairs and into his bedroom. Mama shuffled back into the kitchen, hampered as always by her damaged leg.

Uncle Tonio released Mina’s hand and fell on all fours. He began thumping the skirting board, moving his hand along it with each thump.

‘Don’t … please, Uncle, you’ll hurt yourself. It will be okay. Please …’

Mina fell silent as her uncle’s efforts broke the skirting board into uneven pieces. With a dull thunk, a piece fell forward, revealing a dark gap in the wall. Tonio tried to reach his hand into the gap, but he couldn’t quite manage to coordinate himself. Mina slipped down beside him and peered into the gap. There were wrapped bundles in there, pushed back a little. She inched her hand into the gap, half expecting spiders, and drew out the items one by one. They were small, rectangular packages, all wrapped in dusty rags. She opened the first one with care, and gasped as she unveiled a miniature painting, about as long as her hand, and as wide. The surface of the painting glistened, the colours smooth and bright as gemstones. It was a painting of a woman standing between two columns, her overdress exquisitely detailed with brocade and her sleeves sewn with jewels. She held a fine paintbrush and stood at an easel with a large, half-finished painting of a landscape. A gentle smile lit up her face.

Mina laid the painting on the ground, and unwrapped another one. It had the same setting, two columns and an arch overhead, but this time the painting was of a different woman, playing a long wooden flute such as Mina had seen when musicians visited Andon. Though her mouth was masked by the instrument, her eyes were merry. Again, the colours were as vivid as if the picture had just been painted, though the amount of dust on the wrappings suggested it had been hidden away for many years.

There were five other paintings to be unwrapped, but Mina noticed another rag protruding from the hole, and reached in. She pulled out a big bundle, and the rag fell open as she dragged it toward her. Inside were some fine brushes, and the dried out remnants of paints in small clay dishes.

Mina’s mouth fell open. Someone in this house had painted these exquisite pictures. Could it possibly have been Uncle Tonio? Why else would they be in his room? And why were they hidden?

She slid her hand into the hole, hoping to find something else that might confirm her suspicions. She had to lie on the floor to slide her arm in, but it was worth braving the dust. Her hand connected with one more bundle. Slowly, she drew it out and unwrapped it. For some reason, her heart was pounding. When she drew back the last shred of rag she nearly stopped breathing.

This painting was different to the others. It was square, and though it showed another young woman, it was a close portrait from the shoulders up. Her blond hair was bundled on her head and studded with tiny flowers, but wisps escaped to curl over her long neck. What could be seen of her dress was white, with a few beads dotted around. Her eyes were brown, a startling contrast to her blondness. She had the slightest smile on her lips, and her eyes were bright with inner fire. The picture was so perfect, so alive, Mina half expected to hear the girl breathing.

A tiny curl of white on the background caught her attention and she lifted the picture to examine it. ‘Tonio’ was inscribed in letters so small they were barely there. Her uncle had painted this.

Next to her he whispered, ‘Ana.’

So this was Tonio’s wife. She had been exquisite.

Mina wasn’t sure afterwards whether it was the faint paint smell that stuck to the miniatures, but she began to feel dizzy, disconnected, the room too bright.

‘Where the Creator are you?’ her father’s voice boomed from the hallway, and Mina came back to herself with a jolt. She dropped the picture of Anastasia and was frozen in unexpected terror. Tonio began shoving the other rag-wrapped paintings back into the hole. Papa entered the room. He looked set to launch into some tirade or another, but stopped dead.

‘What’s that?’

Following her uncle’s panicked example, Mina had been trying to slide the last few paintings under her leg to hide them. Under her father’s angry glare she stood, hoping her skirt would conceal them, and passed the portrait of Anastasia to him.

‘I found it … the skirting board fell down and …’

He snatched the painting from her and examined at it. ‘This is one of Tonio’s,’ he said, his voice soft.

‘It’s wonderful,’ Mina said. ‘We should make a frame for it and …’

‘It has to be destroyed,’ Papa said, his words like a slap in the face. ‘Is there anything else in there?’

Mina thought of saying no, but Papa had the dangerous stillness that often came before an eruption. She could feel the choked emotion simmering.

‘Some paints,’ she said, and pulled them out again. ‘That’s all.’

Her father snatched the paints from her, a few pots falling from the bundle onto the floor. Though her heart was beating fast, Mina couldn’t bear the thought of the exquisite painting being destroyed.

‘Papa, you can’t destroy it, please? I didn’t even know Tonio could paint and it’s so good. She’s so beautiful.’

‘That damn girl,’ Papa snarled. He didn’t look at Tonio at all. ‘Just like your fool of an uncle, falling in love with an outsider. I told him she’d be the end of him. Stick with your own people, I told him, not an Innaroi. Always coming in and thieving, then disappearing before anyone realises. When Anastasia died, her damn family just took off.’

This was more than Mina had ever heard about her aunt. Though she had wondered about her, it had been one of those family secrets that was clouded in disapproval.

‘What was she …’ Mina began, but her father continued talking.

‘It could have been so different,’ and he glanced at the painting in his hand for a heartbeat before snapping it in two with a sudden movement. Tonio whimpered. Mina cried out, but it was too late. All the raw emotion of the day, grief and rage mixed up together, erupted then.

‘Why did you do that?’ she yelled at her father. ‘It was perfect, and Uncle Tonio painted it, and how could you? He’s right here, and you’re calling him a fool to his face. You’re worse than Lucetta!’

Her father took a sudden step toward her, raising his hand. Mina took a step backward, flinching from the oncoming blow. Papa stopped his hand at her reaction, and his face crumpled.

‘Not again,’ he said, and his voice dissolved in choked tears. ‘I swore I’d never hit my little girl again. What have I become?’

He took a step back, dropping the painting pieces on the floor. Mina hurried to him and took his hands in her own. Behind her Tonio gathered up the paintings that had been hidden under Mina’s skirt and slid them back into the skirting board, his movements furtive.

‘It’s fine, Papa. It’s fine. You’ve never hit me.’

His head down, he stilled his ragged breathing. ‘Yes, I have …’ He sighed.

Then another missing memory came back to her. Papa had caught her one day, telling a story to the stone children at the fountain. He had hit her. She’d lost a tooth, and her ears had rung for a long time after. She took a step back and looked at her father, shocked. How could she have forgotten?

‘I’m sorry,’ her father said, a single tear tracking down his cheek. He sat down heavily on Tonio’s bed. Tonio, his paintings concealed, slid the piece of skirting board back in place. With a worried glance at Papa, he shuffled from the room. Mina sat down beside her father.

‘You were such a bright little thing,’ he told her. ‘I used to tell you stories, and you’d listen and learn them all off by heart. Tales I’d heard growing up. But you were hungry for more tales than I had. Then you started spending all your time with Paolo. Paolo knew different stories because he talked to travellers in the market a lot. But you wore out all his tales too. Then you started telling all the tales you’d learned to those stupid fountain children. And you remembered every tale you’d ever heard.’

Papa fell silent.

‘Then what, Papa?’ Mina asked, though an uneasy feeling in her stomach told her she almost remembered the answer.

‘I stopped you,’ he said, and his voice was quieter than Mina had ever heard it. ‘I found you telling a story you’d made up. I made you stop. I … I hit you. I was afraid.’

‘Afraid of what?’ Mina asked.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Papa said.

Mina met Papa’s eyes. She knew what he was thinking. ‘So like her mother.’ He said it to her often. Papa loved her, she knew, but it was often hard for him to show her. Now she knew why her stories were gone. He had silenced her the day he’d hit her. There’d been no more stories. She felt no anger, just sadness. She had lost something, and not even remembered why.

‘They say it’s wrong,’ Papa began again. ‘Like Tonio’s paintings. He showed one to someone once, and they came and burned them all. I didn’t know he’d done more. I never understood what was so wrong. Especially with your storytelling. Story tellers are blessed by the Creator, and the Creator can bring stories into being, so why shouldn’t you?’

He stood up, and looked away, hiding his expression from Mina.

‘You should find your stories again,’ he muttered. ‘You were happier then.’

He squeezed her shoulder, still not looking at her directly, then left the room, leaving Tonio’s portrait broken on the floor.

Mina knelt and picked up the two pieces, wrapped them in their rag and, removing the skirting board once more, tucked them back inside the wall. She put the skirting board back carefully, her mind whirling. She’d locked her tales away for so long she’d come to believe what they said in the divina, that only the Creator made up new tales. Story tellers told the sacred tales of Tarya, passed down over innumerable years. The only new tales ever told were the tales of people’s lives, and they weren’t made up. Not really. Just re-told.