The Girl Who Couldn'T See Rainbows

Chapter ten

Chapter ten

Mrs Mc Millian had a conniving air that morning. “He's waiting for you in the garden, Miss Bruno,” she whispered, as if someone was eavesdropping.

“He who?” I asked puzzled.

“Mr Mc Laine, of course! Go straight to him.”

I looked at her suspiciously. “But why..?”

“He made Kyle bring him to the garden with his wheelchair. He said he wanted to work outdoors... He hasn’t done that in years!” Mrs Mc Millan was radiant with happiness. “Hurry up and go, Miss Bruno. What are you waiting for?” She added hastily.

He really was in the garden. Kyle had placed him next to the artificial pond at the back of the house. It was a quiet, adorable corner, and his smile was as warm as the sun of June.

“Good morning, Melisande.”

I gave him a tight smile. I had dreamed of him that night, and I hadn’t returned to earth yet. He hadn’t spoken this time; he just smiled and gazed at me adoringly as he spun me around in a waltz.

“I was tired of working at home... Do you want to sit on the bench? Or do you prefer to get a deck chair from the garage?”

“The bench will do fine,” I said. I took a seat on the stone bench as he dropped the blanket that Kyle had put over his knees to the ground.

“I'm paralyzed, not a chilly old man,” he said scornfully.

“Do you want me to go get your computer? Or at least your notebook and a pen?” I suggested.

He smiled happily. “No, none of that. I have everything I need.” He gazed at me from head to toe as if I were a cow he wanted to buy.

“Do you like this place, Melisande?” He gestured with his hand, embracing the pond with water lilies, lawns, trees, flowers, and the house behind us.

“It's very beautiful,” I murmured, not knowing what he was getting at.

“Even in black and white?” Disbelief sounded in his voice.

It was like a punch in my stomach. I jumped up, like a spring, ready to go back inside. My eyes were blurred with tears. He had done it again, although I wasn’t angry with him, but with myself. He had chosen me as a source of fun from the very first moment. Why did I fool myself that things had changed? He knew my soft spot, the one towards which he directed his jibes. I was nothing more than a voodoo doll for him...

“You're too impulsive, Melisande,” he stopped me. “I'm not as sadistic as you think. It was just an innocent question.”

I turned to face him with clenched fists. “It's not an innocent question! For you, maybe, but not for me!”

“Sit back down, please. Don’t make me repeat it.”

I shook my head furiously and decided not to give up. But his eyes were so kind that they worked the miracle. I clumsily went back to the bench.

“My question makes sense, Melisande. Wouldn’t this place be more beautiful with colours?” His tone was imperious, convincing. I answered reluctantly.

“It probably would be, yes.”

He laughed until he choked. I looked at him silently, with a nasty scowl. I wouldn’t move a finger to help him, not when he was playing with me. The dream came back to my mind. It had been so beautiful, and the awakening so horrible that I wanted to sleep forever, like Sleeping Beauty.

“Probably!” He repeated disdainfully, when he stopped coughing. “Of course! Colours are important, Melisande, not just irrelevant details.”

He continued to twist the knife in my wound, I thought angrily. “I can’t see them... So why are you torturing me?”

“If answering a simple question causes this reaction, then you’re torturing yourself.” His objection made me smile. He was imitating my comment on Ben and Coralie Davenport.

“All right, let's talk about it” I allowed. “Surely this place would be more beautiful if I could see its colours.”

He looked at me affectionately now, as if he was really interested in me, to the point that tears came to my eyes.

“It's tough, isn’t it?”

“You can’t imagine how much it is...” I addressed him familiarly, but I

didn’t excuse myself. He was practically stripping me of all my defences and formalities seemed redundant. “It's worse than being blind, because there's no other person in the world who can understand you, therefore accept or comfort you. I’m always on my toes, to fend off people's strikes. They don’t know that even by complimenting me on the colour of my hair, they remind me that I'm the only who can’t see it.”

I felt like a wool sweater that had been aggressively washed. But I didn’t avoid his gaze.

“You can’t see colours, not yet,” he said enigmatically. “But you can imagine them.”

My laughter was genuine. “And how can I do such a thing?”

He told me to pick some grass. “What do you think about it?”

I felt the dewy stems with my hands. “Grass,” I said, confused.

“Use your imagination, damn it!” He exclaimed irritably. “Smell it.”

I laughed out loud, but I stopped when I realized he was serious. Remembering his order about not making him repeat things twice, I brought the grass to my nose.

“What do you smell?”

I hesitated. “It's a cool smell.”

“Now you know what the green is,” he said impulsively. “Fresh, herbal and persistent.”

I looked at him, my mouth open with surprise. “Green.”

He opened his closed hand to reveal a rose petal. He threw it at me, and I caught it. It was already crumpled. I was about to carry it to my nose when he blocked me.

“Touch it, Melisande. Its scent can’t help you, it smells of roses. Roses are of many colours, but the scent is the same. Let it be your hands to explore.”

I passed the tip of my fingers on the petal, several times. “It's delicate, thin, fragile and velvety.”

“Exactly,” he agreed in a calm tone.

“I want to discover other colours,” I prayed, eagerly.

He pointed out the pond. “That's blue, Melisande. What do you think about it?"

“Do I have to touch the water?”

“No, you have to use your imagination. The blue sky, the streams... What do they have in common?”

“Their depth!” I was excited, like a little girl with her first discoveries.

“Very good,” he said, pleased. “Blue is deep, enthralling and intense.

Do you like oranges?” He asked again, changing the subject.

“Well, they're orange. Orange is a vibrant, tasty, juicy colour.”

I was now hanging from his lips, fascinated by the gentleness of his voice. “And yellow?”

He looked up. “It's the colour of the sun. You can’t touch that, of course. But you can get an idea.”

I nodded. “It's warm.”

“And what do think about red?” He asked slyly.

“It's the colour of fire,” I said thoughtfully. “And of my hair,” I added, touching it with my hand. “But it's not enough for me to imagine it.”

He smiled. “Come here, Melisande. I have something to show you, something that will allow you to discover red.”

I approached him, until I reached the wheelchair. His fist was closed, as if he was hiding something.

“Bend down, Melisande, I can’t move, you know that.” There was something wildly bitter in his voice now.

I obeyed instantly, grateful to him.

I leaned on my heels, a hand on the back of the chair, confused by his mysteriousness. I lowered my eyes to his closed hand. Curiosity gave way to the amazement when he opened it.

It was empty.

I raised my eyes to his face, confused. He quickly took my head in his hands and kissed me. It was a possessive, demanding, angry kiss. I endured that assault with a surprising joy, answering his kiss with intensity. My head was disconnected from the rest of the body, floating on a blissful, foggy and smoky limbo. Then, suddenly, he broke away from me.

“This is red. It's passion.” His voice was hoarse, his eyes dilated.

For an endless time I remained silent, too stunned to speak.

“Did you kiss me just to show me red?” I asked. My voice was also hoarse, unrecognizable.

He hesitated for a fraction of a second too long, revealing the lie he was about to say. “Obviously. My educational purposes were highly honourable, Melisande.”

I got up with shaky legs. “You didn’t kiss me just for that” I said in a firm tone.

He gave me an evil smile. “Interesting assumption. So are you offering me an affair? I admit I'm a bit rusty, but I can handle it.”

I wouldn’t allow him to ruin the first blossom of happiness I felt in my heart. The roots were still weak, but they would get strong, I promised myself. I remembered Monique's favourite phrase. If one seeks happiness bravely and decisively, it will feel obliged to come to us, almost like a devoted servant.

“I don’t think so,” I said, mischievously. “Since I work here... well, it seems unprofessional.”

He grinned, playing along with me. “Then I'll fire you.”

I burst out laughing. “That’s not an option.”

“So we're at a dead end.” There was no sarcasm in his voice, and his expression was thoughtful. Then he suddenly turned towards the house. “Shall we go back inside? I'm not used to the sun, and I'm sweating.”

I forced myself not to fly before my wings were sufficiently developed so that I wouldn’t fall to the ground. But it was tough. I was so hungry for some tenderness that I couldn’t control my daydreams. Sebastian Mc Laine had been kind to me, and I already fantasized about his possible ulterior motives, which probably existed only in my hopes. At the end of the day, a kiss meant nothing. I was shrewd and disillusioned enough to know that. I smiled sadly. It’s a bad thing to lie to others, but it’s criminal to lie to yourself. I wasn’t cynical, but desperately unhappy; I believed in fairy tales and that could easily lead me to disappointment.

“Wake up, Miss Bruno.”

His tone was so abrupt that tears came to my eyes. That was the moment, after days and days of total indifference on his part, in which I understood how foolish I had been to give a romantic meaning to his kiss. And at that moment I made a decision: Sebastian Mc Laine, a writer of Gothic tales, capable as no other to search into the darkness of the human soul, was and would always be only my employer, even if he had tried another approach. I had to stop him from messing with me, before I ended up with nothing but broken expectations.

“I'm perfectly awake, sir,” I replied, almost angrily.

His laughter echoed in the small space of his office, and destroyed my recent intentions. It was impossible not to fall in love with him; his laugh was able to make my inexperienced heart dance.

“Melisande... Melisande...” He waved the pen in my direction. “Don’t play with a person who has millions of games behind him.”

“Did you win them, sir?” I asked with a false casualness.

“Obviously,” he said with a smile. “Mostly by cheating.”

“It seems like...” I cut short, unwilling to continue.

“It seems like...?”

“...you’re proud of having cheated, sometimes,” I concluded hesitantly, afraid of offending him.

He laughed again, cheerfully.

“In the end, the important thing is winning, Melisande. Don’t believe in those who tell you that it's enough just to participate.”

“Winning unfairly?” I doubtfully weighed that thought. “It's a Pyrrhic victory, almost a defeat.”

“You're so young, Melisande...” He shook his head, an ironic expression on his beautiful white face. “Are you sure you really wouldn’t cheat in order to win?”

“I would avoid doing so with all my strength,” I said impulsively and sincerely.

He carefully studied me with those sharp and penetrating eyes, and then he asked me the only question I didn’t know how to answer. “Not even if the heart of your beloved one was at stake?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir. I’ve never been in love,” I said in a gleeful tone, while my heart jumped for that blatant lie.

He pursed his lips. “Yet you have been very lonely, you know what it means... It's a black beast, a devouring monster... How can you not wish for love?”

“Loneliness doesn’t mean being alone, but missing someone in particular,” I said kindly.

“Are you saying that I'm in love?”

“I'm just saying that I'm not,” I said, clumsy in the face of his on-going, pressing verbal assaults.

He watched me carefully, thoughtful and amused. “Tell me that pretending you don’t understand is a tactic of yours, or you'll give me white hair.”

“I think it depends on your age,” I said impudently.

He burst out in his usual laughter, and I didn’t join him. I felt like a stuffed doll in the hands of an unknowingly cruel child, and I began to lose my famous inertia, that apathy that had saved me so many times in the past, in the form of an impenetrable oblivion.

Mrs Mc Millian appeared, preceded by a discrete knock. She entered talking away, and I felt a surge of affection for her. She was so nice and lively that she could even fight off the dark shadows of Midnight Rose.

“Your mail, Mr Mc Laine,” she announced, smiling brightly. Boredom washed over him again, as she disturbed his mental games at my expenses.

“You may go, Millicent.”

She turned to me, resuming her cheerful chatter. “There’s also a letter for you, Miss Bruno. I brought it here immediately, with the others, because I imagined it would please you. You live such an isolated life and you’re so young...”

My heart turned to ice. Only one person knew my current address. Monique. Before I could refuse, the woman put the letter in my hands, and stood watching me with the indulgent expression of a person who thinks she's doing you a favour.

Sebastian Mc Laine, the supreme and fascinating tyrant, saw my uneasiness and hurriedly sent her away. “You may go, Millicent.”

The reluctance of the woman was obvious, but she didn’t flinch and, respecting her boss’s order, she left the room.

I almost laughed. Mc Laine liked to torture me with his psychological games, but he wouldn’t allow others to do it, albeit unintentionally.

I turned the letter between my sweaty hands, uncertain about what to say.

“Who sent it?” The question came when I thought I was off the hook. He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at the computer, and I thought he was already immersed in the reviewing of his manuscript.

“I think it's from my sister,” I admitted with a stifled voice.

“Don’t you want to read it?”

“I'll do it later, once I’ve finished working,” I replied quickly and nervously.

His eyes fell on my hands, firmly clutching the envelope, and examined them with the attention of a fortune teller.

“Read it now, it doesn’t bother me.”

“You’re... unbearable!” I shouted angrily.

His eyes rose to my face, devoid of any trace of animosity or interest, and I felt ashamed of my unreasonable outburst. That man had magical powers, I decided. He was able to pull out the worst in me, and my best, depending on the moment. With him I was alive, unlike the miserable Melisande of my arid and sterile past.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, lowering my eyes. I didn’t let go of the letter; it was ridiculous considering that in the room there was just me and him, a paralytic. I felt the sharp feeling that if he could move, he would have ripped it out of my hand to read it.

“Read it, Melisande. Here. Now.” It wasn’t an order, more an invitation made with such a gentle voice that I felt tears stinging my eyes.

I gave up. He was like a cat, determined not to let go of the mouse, until he had satisfied his predatory instincts. His curiosity had to be fulfilled, and there was no way of avoiding it. Why procrastinate the inevitable, I thought exhaustedly while I tore open the envelope. The sheet fell on my lap, as light and white as a feather. It took a long time before I decided to unfold it, and then I did it quickly with the tip of my fingers, as if the sheet could bite me. Maybe not the sheet, but Monique yes. Even at a distance.

I didn’t have to read it to find out what my sister wanted; I already knew it with unmerciful certainty. Yet I forced myself to devour every line, every word, every letter; then I folded the sheet and put it back in the envelope with trembling hands.

“My sister is fine, she tells me that Dad is better and that...”

Sebastian interrupted my trembling words with a gesture of hand, a strange glitter in his eyes, maybe pity. “I thought you had learned to trust me.”

I answered frankly. “Sir... can you trust the moon? Today it’s full; tomorrow it no longer is... And within a few days, it is reduced to a slice of light...”

His pity was replaced by a bleak amusement. “You mean... I'm a lunatic. Don’t I deserve the truth anyway?”

“Everyone deserves the truth,” I murmured, staring straight into his eyes.

“So?”

I avoided the question, giving in to the habit of not hoping for help. “The usual things... Monique is repetitious in her letters...”

He smiled. “I'm glad you chose to be honest.”

I clung to that straw, and I smiled back. Perhaps, despite my premonitions, he hadn’t understood anything and would leave me alone. His blow was harder than expected, perhaps because it took me by surprise.

“She’s asking for money, isn’t she? As usual...”

I gasped in surprise. I don’t know why... after all he had admitted to be a cheater. Victory, in first place. These were his words, right?

“You searched my room and read the other letters...” I was amazed at my voice. It was different. Almost a croak. My vocal cords contracted indignantly, from the awareness of being involved in an uneven battle with an opponent capable of any vile act.

He sneered but didn’t lose an ounce of charm. “Melisande... How could I search your room? As you can see, I have difficulty in moving...”

I had a slight hesitation, almost convinced myself that my accusations were unsubstantiated, and then I understood. “Kyle... You sent him, didn’t you?”

“I would never send Kyle into your room, Melisande...” he said softly. “But I admit that I read the other letters your sister sent you. You live in my house, you're under my protection, and I have the right to know what's going on.”

“Then who, if not Kyle? Not Mrs Mc Millian...“ The resentment was so great to make me see red, I who couldn’t see colours. It was unbelievable. Furiously inconceivable.

He was imperturbable. “Never mind how and why. The important thing is to clear this situation. Do you mean to send money to Monique?”

“I don’t think it's any of your business,” I cried out. It was my personal nightmare, and I had to live it. Without any interference from a bored and wealthy writer, who just wanted to have fun at my expense.

“It is, Melisande. If someone wants to hurt you, it's my business, too,” he said resolutely.

“Why?” I whimpered, turning to look at the door, as if to evaluate which escape routes I had available. From that room I could escape, from Sebastian, from that house... but from my past? It was a stain of indelible ink on my future.

He avoided the question with a much greater skill than mine. “Do you intend to send her the money? All your monthly salary?”

“I must,” I said patiently, my eyes on his lean face, as if to invoke his pity. I just wanted to be left in peace, in peace with my burdens, with my debts and my anguish.

“Then I'll pay for it,” he said, shocking me out of my mind. My heart wavered under the weight of his words, as if it couldn’t tolerate further pranks, but he seemed tremendously serious.

“Don’t be silly,” I said finally. I knew he was kidding and this encouraged me, but on the other hand I was dismayed by his total insensitivity.

“I’m never silly,” he denied, his eyes full of spirit. I sank into the mystery of his eyes, and when I re-emerged I suffered atrociously. He took his eyes off me to open a drawer. As in a trance, I followed his movements. He took out a check book and filled one out. He determinedly pushed it toward me, over the smooth counter. It was upside down, and it took me a couple of seconds to read the figure.

“Are you crazy?”

“I don’t have the answer to that question. Take the check, Melisande, send it to your avid sister and advise her not to disturb you for at least ten years,” he threatened. A smile curled the corners of his mouth. “You’re delightful at this moment, and your eyes seem surprised and enchanted like those of a little girl in front of a Christmas tree.”

“I can’t accept it,” I stammered in astonishment.

“I know her address. If you don’t send it, I'll do it,” he said firmly.

“But why? Why are you doing this for me?”

“Because I feel like it. Is that a good enough reason?”

I reluctantly and incredulously touched the check. The amount was generous, and it would have been enough to keep Monique off my back for quite some time. It was disturbing, however, to have no idea of ​​the reasons behind my unpredictable employer’s gesture. His mind escaped any logic, any understanding. His motives were as elusive and flickering as mountain snakes.

“But I would be indebted with you,” I said, trying to reason. I must never let myself forget what I was for him: just a source of fun. Nothing else. And I was really in danger of losing my heart, if I had given in to the desire to play along with him.

“Now you're boring me, Melisande... I didn’t think you were so self-righteous,” he said with a mild and amused exasperation. “I have so much money to last me for twenty lives, and as you well know, I'm alone and unable to enjoy it. I feel like giving it to you, as long as you cut all the ties with your family. Their sins don’t concern you.” He paused. “You didn’t arm your sister's hand, she decided to kill that journalist on her own, don’t forget it. And your father... He doesn’t deserve your forgiveness, if he’ll ever be sober enough to ask you for it, which I highly doubt.”

When I heard those words, my mouth stooped in sadness. “I've already forgiven him.”

“Wow!” He clapped his hands, increasing my embarrassment. That man was impossible. “You're really a saint, Melisande. It sounds good, doesn’t it? Saint Melisande...”

“Is nothing sacred for you?” I asked angrily.

“Yes.” He grimaced. “The inevitability of revenge.”