The Girl Who Couldn'T See Rainbows

Chapter seven-2

I closed my eyes, remembering the hardest moment of my life. My memories intertwined, bringing up the hellish series of events. Every thought converged in that direction, forcing me to uncover that pot full of horrors.

“And you couldn’t do it. Go ahead, Melisande,” Mr Mc Laine insisted with such sweetness that my eyes flooded with tears.

“I never had the courage to reveal my handicap, much less to my parents. They were so in love with Monique's perfection that they wouldn’t understand, and what’s more it would have supported their conviction that there was something inadequate, unworthy and wrong about me. Basically I was different, and as such, unacceptable.“ I sank into the sea of ​​my memories, and its waters were so cold that I shuddered. I was silent while I heard Mr Mc Laine pouring some liquid in a glass which he then handed to me over the desk.

My fingers tightened over the glass, and I brought it to my lips. It was a generous dose of brandy and it didn’t surprise me because it was the only drink in the room, and he hadn’t moved nor called Mrs Mc Millian.

I gently set the glass on the desk's smooth surface, fearing to chip it. It was a finely carved table, with a series of roses so realistic that I could almost smell their strong scent, and it was worthy of a King’s office.

“What happened then, Melisande?”

I took a deep, unhappy breath. He wouldn’t be content with part of the story, and I was too tired to go against his will.

“I was forced to reveal the truth about my inability to distinguish colours to my father. He reacted with wild violence. He locked me in the cellar after beating me up. He seemed possessed and he covered me with unrepeatable insults. In short he said I was a disappointment. And that I had always been one. Since I was born.” The memory of those hours, locked in the dark, in terror, ferociously attacked me, like a tiger who decided to tear me to pieces. The bruises on my skin had vanished within a few days, those in my heart still hurt as they had then.

“Monique freed me. My father, completely drunk, called her saying that he wanted to kill me and that I was the shame of the family, a pain in the neck, and that I could destroy her, her life and the goals she had reached with so much effort.”

The pain, imprisoned for so long in my soul, overpoweringly poured out, liquid and piercing. I lifted my eyes to look at him: Mr Mc Laine's image was blurred, wobbly and ghastly because of my teary eyes.

“Monique had become an internationally renowned model, and she had just gotten engaged to a famous guy on the jet set, a very wealthy businessman. If the truth of my invalidity had become known... well, according to my dad, I was a freak show.”

I smiled. He, the chronic alcoholic, whose clothes were eternally crumpled, with a madman’s eyes, his face unshaven, feared that I could hurt his favourite daughter. Indeed, his only one. I was just a peculiar joke of nature, or of destiny. Branded. To be carefully hidden, as if I were a walking shame, a living threat.

“What about your sister? Did she agree with him?” Mr Mc Laine's tone sounded disinterested, but I sensed something else behind his facade.

“No, you don’t know Monique!” I exclaimed earnestly. “Deep down she’s selfish, but she loved me in her own way.”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” he quoted, in a chanting voice.

I crouched in the chair, in a corner with my hands clenched. “She stayed for a few days and then she left again. Her life was a rat race and frivolous between parties and run way shows; between a flight and a beauty session. She couldn’t neglect her commitments. The world of fashion forgets quickly, and easily finds new icons. No one is irreplaceable, everyone is substitutable.”

I smiled sadly because pity had leaked from my voice. That glittering world that I had envied for so long now seemed revolting and corrupt. A beautiful apple that shows the worm it conceals only when you cut it in half.

“I found a job as a servant. Cleaning bathrooms is the ideal job for those who don’t distinguish colours. It’s a black and white world, anyhow, isn’t it?” I tried to make a joke, but it sounded faint, and without humour. “But it allowed me to meet the first friend of my life. Her name was Dinah. A lively and dynamic girl, with an ambitious outlook and a desolating past like mine. She invited me to her friend’s party, do you understand? Nobody had ever done that for me.” I moved in the chair, looking for a more comfortable position. Outside the sky was again covered with dark clouds, a clear storm warning. Even the sky was saddened, listening to my story.

“I went to the party with Dinah. At first I stayed with her, and then she met a boy, and left with him. She left me with a friend of his, a University student named Paul. He didn’t seem very happy to be left with me; he was hostile, annoyed, bored. And I was so uncomfortable that I got drunk.”

“Did he...?” Mr Mc Laine's angry voice surprised me. For a few minutes I had forgotten his presence, as if I had been swallowed by a temporal dimension from which he was excluded.

I burst into a laugh. “I wasn’t his type, not even for a fling.” My voice was harsh. “He wanted something from me, though.”

I passed my hand over my hair, straightening it. I had a tingling feeling in my nape, annoying and harassing. In the meantime the storm had begun. The room was dark and overwhelming.

“To make it short I got drunk, and he had to take me home. He was kind, now that I think about it. I now am thankful that someone did it, even though back then... Thank heavens, Daddy was more drunk than I was and he was snoring so loud that not even an earthquake would have woken him. The next morning I went to work with a terrible headache, and I promised myself that I would never drink again, if only not to fall into my father's footsteps. Great was my surprise when I got out of work, at five o'clock and I found Paul waiting for me. I thought that he... well, I don’t know what I thought, something stupid, maybe. I was so naive... Only later did I find out that he was studying journalism...”

“He had somehow discovered your anomaly, and wanted to use it to write a sensational article, and feed you to the public,” Mr Mc Laine concluded for me. A smile lingered on his perfect face.

“You’re very intuitive, sir,” I said dryly.

He took my words as a compliment, and gave me a bright smile.

“He invited me to dinner, and I accepted. I don’t know why... After all I wasn’t in love nor was I attracted to him. I just thought I should take advantage of him, as if it were the only train that would pass for me. A train that actually never left the station.”

I looked up and my eyes met those of Mr Mc Laine. His face showed his anger, and I wondered why.

“During dinner he revealed that he had discovered my secret. Oh, that hadn’t been so difficult... The alcohol had loosened my tongue and I was the one who handed myself over on a silver plate” I mumbled embarrassingly.

“You were eighteen, Melisande,” he reminded me, staring at me. “At that age it's easy to make mistakes. Forgive yourself.”

I shook my head. “I can’t. If the article had appeared, I would’ve been fed to the lions, like a gladiator. Scientists would have claimed my body, my head, and my life, to cut me to pieces. I was, and still am a unique case. At least I think so. It would’ve been an unrepeatable opportunity for a researcher. And furthermore, I was also the sister of a famous model, about to marry an equally well-known businessman... The ingredients were all there... “

I felt the taste of salt on my lips, and I realized I was crying.

I was stunned, frozen as though someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on me. Going on with the story was an immense effort of which I would have felt proud of, if it hadn’t been for the firm insistence with which Mr Mc Laine pushed me on.

“He wanted to interview me, he tried to convince kindly, by promising me a future full of popularity. I would have been famous, interviewed on television, on the radio, everywhere... When he realized I wouldn’t agree to it, he became vicious. He said the article was already written, and that with or without my consent, he would have tried to publish it. It was his great opportunity, he repeated several times, like a litany, as if that justified him. I didn’t talk anymore; I just kept listening to him, terrified at the idea of ​​my father's reaction. He would have killed me, I was sure of it...”

I stopped to catch my breath. Recalling those memories was exhausting. Mr Mc Laine had pretended too much from me, and now an unbearable weariness burdened me, making me yearn for the peace of oblivion.

“Finish the story, Melisande. I’ll never judge you. I'm not in the position to do so... My soul is blacker than my hair...”

“And your eyes? What colour are they?” The words had escaped from my mouth before I could bite my tongue.

He grinned in amusement. “Why ruin your surprise? Maybe one day you could find out for yourself...”

The anguish abandoned me, flying in the air like a bird. A crow that flew away from me, higher and higher, farther and farther. And I was free.

“I’ll never be able to find it out on my own,” I said, finding my voice.

He smirked. “Never doesn’t exist. Nor does always.” His ironic smile was like a trademark to which I had quickly become accustomed. A business card that I loved to watch over and over again, and from which I felt absurdly protected.

I smiled, too, with difficulty. “I have to tell you the end of the story, don’t I?”

He nodded, as I expected. “If you don’t finish it, you’ll never be able to start another one,” he remarked, mischievously.

The memories came back, lighter this time, floating like feathers. My voice gave them shape, concreteness. I spoke with detachment, as if those memories didn’t concern me anymore. And in a way it was really so.

“I went home with a heavy heart. I had no way out, no other place to go. If the article had appeared... It would have been my ruin. At home I found a surprise. Monique had come back home, and her mood was the opposite of when she left. The millionaire had left her because he had discovered her humble origins, and above all the cumbersome and scandalous presence of an alcoholic father in her life. She begged me to say nothing to our father, for she didn’t want to upset him.” My voice became more monotonic as I continued the story, as if I was a spectator and no longer the leading character.

“I told her everything, seeking her comfort and understanding, but I found none. Monique was shocked by the news. In a few days, besides her boyfriend, she risked losing her career as well.”

“I would have thought the opposite. Often models and actors deliberately seek scandals for publicity.” I could hear the puzzlement in his voice.

“Monique was famous for her aloofness. A goddess among common mortals, a creature from who knows where, untouched by human miseries. The attention to myself would have exposed her to the limelight, and it would have been a dramatically real and unwanted attention.” I was no longer crying, my cheeks had dried, but my eyes were still damp from what seemed spring dew. I was coming back to life, free to tell the truth, a belated flower, and as such, more beautiful.