Chapter seven-3
1584 Words
I shrugged my shoulders. “She decided to talk to the journalist and to pay for his silence. I begged her not to go because she would only make things worse. He wasn’t searching for easy money; he wanted the glory and the fulfilment of his ambitions, with all the arrogance of his youth. You can’t reason with that kind of people, their dreams aren’t for sale; they are bulldozers, tanks, and precision rifles. But she was more arrogant than he was, and I was unable to dissuade her. Therefore she went to him.”
I looked at him. I calmly met his questioning gaze. I no longer escaped from my memories, nor was I stalling. I just wanted to come to terms with the past, without letting its intensity overwhelm me.
“She vainly tried to convince him. A clash of hard heads, with a tragic ending. She came to the point to threaten him with a revolver. I don’t know where she got it, she never told me. She was irrational because of the recent failure of her love affair. She was used to having everything she wanted, and the realization that she wasn’t almighty had destabilized her. He was young and strong, and they fought over the weapon. One of them died”
“Certainly not your sister, or else her letter would come from the after world,” he said ironically.
“Must you always joke over everything?” I asked coldly.
He grinned. “I like making people hate me. It’s a feeling as strong as love, don’t you agree?”
“It depends on your point of view,” I replied, without falling into his trap. He was so humorous that I felt enraged. His behaviour was illogical; therefore his attacks and his jokes were unpredictable. My job was still threatened, and I was too dignified to beg him to keep me. I was revealing my family secret, far worse than my anomaly, and I was amazed at myself. I found myself trusting a man again, and an unreliable one at that. What if he had reported what had happened? Monique would have killed me this time, and she would have gone to prison with her head high. Her revenge would be devastating.
“Did you help her hide the corpse?” His tone was sharp and mocking.
“Of course not,” I replied, offended. “My father took care of it.”
“The alcoholic proved to be precious, in the end.”
I angrily supported his gaze. “I know that I'm an accomplice in a crime, but what else could I do? Shame my sister? My father? Send them to jail? It was my fault if they had come to that point!”
Even without knowing their true colour, his eyes seemed to burn into me, big, dark and ablaze.
“This, I suppose, is what they told you.”
“It was the truth,” I said shyly, lowering my eyes to my white hands.
“NO, it was their truth. Yours was different,” he mocked me. “See, Melisande Bruno... The truth is not one-way, it has a thousand faces, depending on who looks at it, or interprets it. You made a mistake; it happens when you’re eighteen, and even thirty, forty, eighty years old. But you didn’t kill anyone. Your sister did it. And your Dad helped her. He probably wouldn’t have if you were the killer, instead of Monique. And then they tortured your mind, so you would never get rid of your guilt, so you would never forget. Their conscience was silenced, because they found their scapegoat. You. You were perfect for the purpose. You already were, since you were born, guilty just because you existed.”
I stared at him in confusion. The shadows returned to my mind, assuming the shape of bats about to attack me. Could he be right? Could
I really survive my past? And all that had happened to me? Could I hope to have a normal existence? A glimpse of peace in a chaotic sky?
My eyes went to the window. The sun was peeping out of the clouds that were once again clearing, in one of the world's oldest cycles, natural and reassuring. My gaze stopped on Sebastian Mc Laine. His silence wasn’t leaden; rather it was almost confidential, as if we were accomplices, not just strangers. My mind, like the sky, drove away the clouds full of rain, and the black was disrupted by flashes if white light. Maybe I would never see my rainbow, but Sebastian Mc Laine was a perfect surrogate.
“Finish the story, Melisande,” he urged me, his face softened. “Don’t leave it unfinished. Go ahead, don’t stop.”
“Monique called Dad on the cell phone. He rushed to her, just in time to bring her to the emergency room. Then he went back and erased the signs of the murder. Paul was American, and he was studying in Europe with a scholarship. And he had been in the area for just a few days. Nobody looked for him for a long time. I later found out that he was orphaned, and that his adoptive parents were also dead. He was a tough, strong, aggressive and lonely person. The perfect person whose murder could stay unpunished. Monique was safe but she remained disfigured. Not in her face, in her body. Her right breast is a full of scars, and I stopped counting the operations she underwent. She spent all her money, with the crazy idea of going back to her former life, without accepting the fact that that life was now in her past and it would never again become her present or future. Now she’s just a wreck.”
“And you ran away.”
“I had to,” I said unsteadily. “My father almost killed me, when he came home that night. I locked myself in my room just in time, and I spent the night praying that he would get tired of knocking his fists on my door. But he was tired, overwhelmed by the events, and in the end I heard him fall on the floor and start snoring. And so... I ran away. From the window.”
I put a hand on my chest, as if to slow down my frantic heartbeat. Then a new thought struck me hard. Now what would he do? I had put my secret in his hands, without being drunk, this time. A show of trust that I might have paid dearly.
“What will you do now? I mean... that is...” I whispered, cautiously searching for the right words as if I were avoiding puddles. I smiled bitterly. When would I have learned to wear boots? Or to take another path?
“What do you mean?”
I looked away, full of fear. Why did he pretend he didn’t understand? Was he so sadistic? Why was he still playing cat and mouse with me? He hadn’t been a great hunter, but I was a foolish and easy prey. A very stupid rat.
“Are you going to report me?” My eyes met his, direct and resolute. There was no point in beating around the bush, I thought impatiently. Literally, I was at his mercy.
He stared at me, in bewilderment. “To whom? I ignore the place where the crime took place, or the date.”
I didn’t take the bait; I was tired of playing. “You know my name, and my sister’s. Come on, don’t play dumb,” I said slowly.
“It's insulting to think that I'd use your story to blackmail or hurt you, Melisande Bruno. You’re too inconsistent, my dear. One moment you’re a trusting, helpless and cute kitten, and a second later you scratch me. I replied implicitly to your question. But if you prefer it, I'll be clearer.” There was something mocking and allusive in his voice. “I won’t do anything. Absolutely nothing. For me Paul Whatchamacallit never existed. After all, who has ever seen him? The world is full of nasty journalists... I don’t think he’ll be missed.”
“You mean, you’re not disturbed by the idea of a crime,” I said bluntly.
“As I’ve already explained... who am I to judge? The last person in the world, in every sense. And I'm not religious, in any way. Your secret is safe with me, Melisande. Don’t worry.” He gave me a big smile.
“Why do I think the opposite?”
“Because you're too distrustful. Relax, and start living new chapters of your life. That old story is over, you can’t change it, and your feelings of guilt are useless. What good do they do? Of course not to go back in time.” His voice was velvet.
“I'm free to leave,” I said tentatively.
“Of course,” he said, steadily. “If that's what you want.”
I was petrified, disappointment blurred my mind. But why? Shouldn’t I have felt relief at the idea of being free, instead of feeling threatened?
Shouldn’t I have felt safe, because my trust had been well placed? A part of me, wayward and secret, wanted the opposite. I wanted to be tied to that man by chains so tight they wouldn’t allow me to cut free from him in any way. I wanted to have an excuse to stay in that house with him forever.
“Good. That is... thank you.”
He seemed about to burst out laughing. “Don’t thank me, I don’t deserve it. I always do what I want to do. Do not waste your sympathy on me, Melisande.”
“I won’t, sir,” I said with a sigh.
He no longer held back his laughter. “You are so funny, Miss Bruno. I’ve changed my mind. In order to keep you in this house for as long as possible I could even blackmail you...”
His tone was mocking, carefree.
I relaxed. Now he knew all about me. There were no more walls between us.
Well, apart from his.
- Writer
