It was a very interesting job from my standpoint and I had learnt the craft from an early age and it seems that something good came out of it.
As time went by, through my new job and as a new resident in the area, I began meeting with the local people.
On an everyday basis many residents of Venice were greeting me without even having introduced ourselves; only because we were seeing each other every day and that gave me a sense of belonging.
The Italians are very genuine and happy people, something that is important and rare nowadays.
I had become addicted to my job and I had reached the point where I was sitting at nights studying paintings that needed repairing, always in my dark atelier, with low lighting and only my loneliness keeping me company.
I didn’t have a personal life at all and I wasn’t involved with anything else. My only escape was work.
It was almost time for the start of the famous Venetian Carnival and I was feeling like depression was creeping up on me. It was romantic and at the same time mysterious and extraordinary. I was just observing without taking any part.
I couldn’t enjoy the atmosphere because I was in such a bad state.
I wish Eve was here, she would be overwhelmed with happiness.
Several months had passed since my break up with my beloved princess, but for me it was like it happened yesterday!
Everybody was wandering around happily in the street, dressed in beautiful costumes and outfits that were reminiscent of previous centuries.
I was shut up in the house. All alone. Without a mask on my face or a costume as the carnival required.
Although, I was most probably wearing a mask without me even knowing it. The mask of my hypocritical smile that was hiding my pain and suffering!
From the small square window that was in my basement, I glanced at the streets and felt good watching the people walking happily. On the other hand, I was afraid with so much happiness around me!
Everybody was embracing one another. Some were dancing, doing happy pirouettes and others more professional were doing their best, dancing tango to different kinds of music.
I was once like them. Just a few months ago, I was dancing carefree and happy with her.
We would get lost in the crowd and we would meet again surrounded by people. Maybe that’s why I was afraid of all this happiness. Because now I know it can end from one day to the next.
There is no absolute happiness, there are only a few moments of happiness that we must cherish and not let them pass by with indifference because finally they will end and then unhappiness will find a way to root inside us. You cannot define the word ‘happiness’! As long as unhappiness stays away from you and doesn’t come close, that is what true happiness is all about, according to me. Not to feel unhappiness…
I didn’t care about the carnival, neither for the people that were entertaining themselves in wild rhythms. I was putting the final touch on a painting that was brought to me from Cairo that needed restoring because it was in a very poor condition.
The carnival was coming to an end and the summer had slowly started showing its face. Summer has a different feel to it. More pleasant and more carefree. Without any apparent reason our emotions change towards the better.
The bright sun made the pale tourists sweat until they were soaked through. Although, they enjoyed it and yearned for it as Venice was flooded with them.
Years later… as time went by, I got more used to my life in Venice.
The basement and the damp cellar had become my favourite place. I relaxed in the darkness alone; with a cigarette in my mouth and soft jazz music playing from an old gramophone.
Of course, more than a few times I went on some trips to Milan or to historical Rome, but for short periods of time and mostly one day trips for business. My base was in Venice and in my house, where I spent many hours reading, relaxing and of course working on pieces of art that collectors entrusted me with.
Three years had passed since our break-up and all this time I hadn’t returned to Paris not even for one day. I was attached to Venice and to my small atelier, where I found refuge from my tormenting thoughts.
I hadn’t managed to have a serious relationship all these years. Unfortunately, I had succumbed to the pleasures of prostitutes. The prostitutes were keeping me company nearly every day, as I had cut all ties with my friends and acquaintances and I didn’t want to enter into a new relationship. It’s not as simple as it sounds! Sometimes they were terrified by my commands and my brutal behaviour! Commands with Eve being the centre of my sick fantasies. I’ll never forget Melissa; a nineteen years old girl from the Czech Republic, who sold her services. When I told her that I was going to call her Eve, she started smiling ironically. I felt like she was mocking me. I slapped her on the face, throwing her on the floor! I clenched my fists and grabbed a sharp knife from the kitchen and threatened her! I turned her round, face down, placing the thin blade on her slender neck. She started crying. I shouted for her to stop, because if she kept on crying I would cut her and I meant it! When I’d realize what I’d done to her, I threw the knife on the floor and took a few steps back. Her face was filled with smudges. Her mascara was mixed with tears creating straight lines on her cheeks. That wasn’t me! It wasn’t Jacques! I felt like someone else had taken my place and I was watching like a spectator.
I, who was once so sociable, so alive, so active, how could I have reached this ultimate point of degeneracy?
‘Shame…’ I whispered, every time I looked in the mirror. Every time a prostitute would leave my house, having performed her duties, I was feeling the humiliation!
I didn’t care at all about my existence, about my wellbeing or about my isolation from the rest of the world. I didn’t have the need to even think about it. I wasn’t missing it. I had lost my interest for material possessions and the only thing I cared about was my job and a way to forget about Eve. Not to get over her but to forget about her!
Three years and I was still falling asleep and waking up with her sweet image in my head.
It was a night different than any other; I was lying on the sofa with a glass of wine in my hand and I heard someone knocking gently on the front door and I instantly got up, spilling some drops of wine on the floor by accident.
“Who is it?” I exclaimed, waiting behind the door for an answer. “Who is it?” I shouted a little louder, but still no one answered, so I took the initiative to unlock the door and see who it was that was knocking in the middle of the night.
Opening the front door, a cool breeze came in my living room. I put my head out the door and saw an elderly man approaching me. He was eccentric, with a scary appearance! A total stranger.
I can still remember that my heart was pounding from fear. I didn’t close the door. I waited for him to come closer so I could find out what he wanted from me at that hour.
As he approached, I noticed that he was holding in his right hand an object that looked like a painting wrapped in a white sheet.
“How can I help you?” I asked the elderly man, when he was a meter away from me.
“Please, keep it safe. It’s precious…” he replied, placing the object he was holding in a corner, against the wall of the house.
“What is it?” I asked puzzled.
The mysterious man didn’t answer. He smiled coldly, having a gloomy look on his face, totally unhappy and he left limping from my house.
“Hey! Sir! I don’t want this. Come and take it back,” I yelled.
He didn’t take any notice of me and kept on walking away. I didn’t know what to do. Take the mysterious object or leave it there?
I went to close the door and leave it there. To pay no attention to it, but I changed my mind immediately and before I shut the door I put my hand out, grabbed it and brought it inside the house.
I was sure it was a painting only by touching it. I placed the square frame, which was obviously some sort of wooden engraved framework, on the wall and looked
at it. I didn’t want to unwrap it. I couldn’t have known what was behind the white sheet. Besides, at this hour in the dark, who in their right mind would give me a painting to look after? What the mysterious man did, didn’t make any sense and after I thought about it for a while, I decide that I didn’t want to keep it.
I opened the door and went outside looking for the unknown elderly man, who had left the painting outside my house.
I saw a hunched figure fading away in the dark from a distance and I followed it, shouting to come back and take the painting. When I arrived at the corner, no one was there, except for a thin layer of thick mist that spread across the streets of Venice’s centre and some happy couples who were returning from their night out.
I had no other choice but to keep the painting and return home with it.
He might have been a well-known collector or artist and he probably wanted to entrust me, with complete secrecy, with one of his works, I thought.
Coming back home, I placed the painting, covered with the white sheet, in the corner of my living room and quickly went towards the kitchen to drink a glass of water to quench my thirst. Just before I switched on the kitchen light, a cat jumped between my legs, startling me!
“Hey! How did you get here?” I shouted at the cat, shocked.
She calmly jumped on the velvet sofa and gave me a funny look. She was black and chubby. She was not scared of me at all. On the contrary, I’d say she wanted company. Like I did.
I came near her and stroked her behind her ears, putting my fingers through her thick fur and immediately the echo from her purring sounded in the living room. I realized that she felt comfortable with me and I sat next to her on the sofa and started stroking her. The feeling of touching the soft, smooth fur, relaxed me incredibly.
As I was stroking the chubby cat, my eyes were distracted from time to time and focused on the covered painting, giving me an unsettling sensation.
“It’s just a regular painting. What else could hide underneath a white sheet and is square. It certainly isn’t a bomb…” I murmured and got up the sofa to make sure.
“Maybe it’s an old painting that needs restoring or some rare and collectible piece,” I said to myself.
In the case that it was a rare and unique item, how could I get in touch with the owner? I didn’t even have his phone number. I didn’t even know his name!
I put the painting under my arm and headed towards the dark basement until I decided whether or not I would uncover it.
I placed the painting carefully on the large engraved, wooden table; opened the small curtain that hung in front of the rectangular window and the basement lit up from the exquisite full moon.
I held steadily, with my right hand, one corner of the painting and with my left hand I started unfolding the white sheet…
“What have they done, it’s been wrapped so many times as if it were made from gold.”
Unravelling the final corner of the sheet, the painting was revealed. I was stunned and petrified by the sight that unfolded in front of me! My eyes popped and the veins in my neck stood out from my rapid heartbeat! I clenched my teeth from nervousness. I thought that my jaw would break. I stared at it captivated and took a step back keeping my distance from the enigmatic painting.
The beautiful portrait that was wrapped in the white sheet depicted my beloved Eve in an exquisite oil painting! Many years had passed since I saw her and suddenly a stranger gave her to me even if she’s only in a painting!
“Totally bizarre! Absolutely mad!” I mused and murmured, walking in circles.
I put my hand out and touched her sweet face with my fingertips and I burst in tears.
I cried over the painting filled with sorrow, feeling confused and distressed! I lifted my head up and felt something wet dripping from my chin and it was definitely not my tears. I wiped my chin with my hand and brought my face closer to my fingers to see what that fluid was. At the same time, I tasted it with the tip of my tongue.
Its taste was sharp and salty that reminded me of rusted iron.
“Blood…” I whispered.
Wet and warm blood that gushed from my nose with a continuous flow, most likely because of the sudden pressure I felt.
I took some tissues and pressed them on my nostrils to stop the blood. After a few minutes the bleeding ceased. I threw the tissues on the table and I tried to calm down.
Looking at the painting, I noticed that a drop of thick blood had fallen on it and had already dried. I grabbed the portrait of my beloved one, I covered it with the white sheet and I placed it behind the old bookcase I had, so I wouldn’t look at it.
I don’t know why I did that, but I didn’t want to have it in a place where I could see it. Even though I had no idea who the owner of the portrait was, I wanted to keep it and my instinct was telling me that the mystery man gave it to me for that reason.
I spent all night in the basement, lying on a thick blanket. Me, Eve and the full moon.
The next morning, I woke up early and I started looking for the old man who gave me the painting unexpectedly.
I knew that it wouldn’t be easy to find him but I wanted to find out who the man was who owned Eve’s portrait and why he gave it to me.
Five long hours of walking and no result. I didn’t see him in the streets, nor did I see him in the shops and no one else had seen him from the description I gave the neighbours and locals. He was tall, thin, around 65 years old, with curly white hair. The most important information that I could recall was that he was limping on one leg and was holding a black, thin cane.
How many people could there be with the same characteristics in Venice. I thought that someone would have seen him!
After hours of fruitless effort, I returned home tired and I laid down on the sofa, where Niki was waiting for me. The cuddly cat helped me conquer my anxiety, even if it was only for a moment, and I named her Niki; from the Greek word “νίκη”, which means that I won, I was victorious. I was lying on the sofa playing with small worry beads made out of amber when I received an unusual phone call that was enough to change my bad mood.
“Hello?” I said, pressing the phone against my ear.
“Good morning,” a woman’s sweet voice was heard.
“Good morning, how can I help you?”
“Jacques, is that you?” the stranger asked, taking me by surprise.
“It’s Jacques. Do I know you?” I was puzzled.
“Jacques. It’s Camellia. If you remember me of course,” she replied.
“Camellia?? Of course I remember you. How are you?” I replied with great joy as she was Eve’s and my best friend and besides that, I hadn’t spoken to her for a while. Many years.
“I’m fine, you?”
“I’m trying my best to be okay. It’s been years since we last spoke but I still haven’t lost my mind,” I said jokingly. “How did you find my new phone number?”
“Why? Is it unlisted?” she asked in a funny way as she usually did.
“No, it’s not unlisted. But only Sebastian knew it, that’s why I’m asking.”
“Yes, Sebastian… it’s a shame,” she whispered.
“A shame?” I asked, frowning with ignorance.
“Yes, don’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“A drunk driver…”
“Yes? What happened with the drunk driver? Talk to me!” I exclaimed, clutching my mobile tightly in my hand, realizing that bad news would follow.
“He was involved in a fatal car accident about a year ago.”
“No. Don’t lie to me!” I whispered, not wanting to believe that my best friend had died.
“Do you think I’d be joking with such matters?”
“And why didn’t anyone call me?”
“Jacques, without wanting to be mean, you wrote everyone off and left. You changed your mobile number and didn’t care whether we were dead or alive…”
“That’s not true! I think about you all every day and
I miss you. If you knew how much I’ve missed everybody, you wouldn’t utter such harsh words against me,” I said, shutting slowly my eyes.
“Yes, but you broke all communication with us. As if you had forgotten about us.”
“That’s the reality, Camellia, but I always held everyone close to my heart. I’ve always reminisced the beautiful moments in Paris. I didn’t have a choice though.”
“What are you saying, Jacques, of course you had a choice. We didn’t send you away. You left!”
“Did Sebastian tell you everything?’
‘Yes. I got your phone number from him. He told me that you’d left Paris to go to Venice years ago, without having said goodbye to us and you specifically told him not to give your phone number to anyone else. Do you know how worried I was until I found out where you were?”
“I can’t blame you because you’re right. I don’t want to argue through the phone and after so many years,” I said, trying to change the subject.
“But it’s why I called you…”
“For what?”
“To tell you that I moved to Rome a few months ago and if you wanted to meet to go for a coffee, so I can tell you about all the changes in my life.”
“Are you serious? You’ve moved permanently to Italy?”
“If you remember I’d studied architecture in Florence and then I returned to Paris. Now I’ve moved to Rome to work for a company that hired me.”
“Good for you, Camellia! Of course we should meet. I want to take care of some loose ends that I have regarding my business and next week we can arrange it.”
“Okay, I’ll be waiting for your call.”
“Bye.”
I put the phone down and remained silent, staring at the wall in front of me. I was battling inside with the raging wrath, which was closing in on me, thinking that my best friend had died and the worst thing was, I never knew! I had distanced myself from everyone and everything. The only friend I had the last few years was myself.
Did I Seduce You Mr Jacques Page 7