Norman’s thoughts were caught in a whirlwind of images as they searched for enough light to separate the bad ones from the good. For a moment, he was tempted to run away again. But, like a warrior who knows he is trapped, he wriggled out of the clutches of doubt to face his fears once and for all. He turned and saw the bathroom door was open. The mirror hanging on the wall reflected an image he hardly recognized. Curiosity drew him closer. He tried to understand the meaning of what his eyes were trying to make him see, but truth is not so polite as to announce its presence; at a certain point, it just arrives, without considering the best way to do it, and without bothering with the apologies a surprise guest should make for not having knocked.
Chapter 31
They left the supermarket. The cold they had left outside was waiting for them, oblivious of the discomfort it brought with it. Jonathan held his grandson’s hand and promised that when they arrived home, he could watch his favorite television programs and feast on the bilberry juice and cookies they had just bought.
“Grandpa, when can I see Dad again?”
“Do you like your Dad?”
“Yes! He’s nice. I’d like to read him the other poems I’ve written. Can we invite him to drink juice sometime?”
“Of course, little man. We’ve got to go home now though. You need to rest.”
“But I don’t want to go home.”
“Don’t be naughty. You’ve got to take your medicine in a little while.”
“How long have I got to take it for? I don’t like medicine. It tastes bitter. Yuk!”
“That’s why we’ve bought your favorite juice and biscuits.”
“Oh blow!”
Will’s protests reminded him vividly of Norman and the comments he had made at the same age, although it took watching a football match and munching on potato chips to keep him happy. They walked past a bar.
“Hey, young man! What do you say to having ourselves a cup of hot chocolate to warm our bones before we go home?”
“Yeah! Cool! Hooray for chocolate!”
Jonathan loved seeing his grandson’s eyes shining with a little happiness. He didn’t deserve all the ordeals he had to bear. The child was full of hope and joie de vivre. He would do anything to help him, but miracles, he thought, didn’t happen twice in the same way. Julia didn’t have the same heart and the same chance of success as his wife had had where Norman was concerned. The only person who could help was Norman himself, but he would never ask a thing like that of him, just as he hadn’t asked Claudia, despite them both knowing that the only way to save their beloved son was for her to donate her heart voluntarily.
He had wanted Norman to meet his son purely and simply because the doctors had given Will only a few months before his little heart gave out and it didn’t seem right that a father found out about his son’s death without ever having met him. He had, however, omitted to tell him about the illness. Norman’s spirit was too fragile to cope with such a great inner struggle. He knew only too well that since his mother’s death, not a day had passed without Norman thinking it was all his fault – him and his ailing heart that fate had bequeathed with no possible recourse. He also knew that the lovely poems Norman wrote were desperate attempts to talk to his mother, in the hope of somehow describing the gesture she had made. He knew that Norman was devoted to Claudia and thought of her as an angel. But, like all men, Norman had also experienced the dark side of life and lost himself there, chasing dreams that didn’t belong to him in order to try and forget the weight pressing on his heart, to escape the guilt that each day handed him a bill that was too steep to pay. That was what had set him adrift and made him forget he had a companion he loved and who loved him. It was paradoxical that that same deep love was what had distanced him and made him repudiate all the words of love he had strung together like a divine song. Jonathan had tried to help him, but pride is sometimes too mighty a barrier to overcome.
They stepped inside the bar. The room was crowded with people.
“Grandpa, Grandpa. Let’s sit here.”
“OK, Will.”
No one listened to the child’s voice except a man who had just understood where his fate lay.
Chapter 32
“How’s that possible? What do you mean? It can’t be true!”
“When God’s involved, anything is possible, my dear Tommy!”
“O’Neal’s been trying for ever to whittle out the secret of immortality and now the only person in the world capable of finding the perfect equation is saying that we have to talk to O’Neal? It’s just plain stupid!”
“It would be stupid to ignore what my son wrote.”
“Celine, you said Will had written the formula before. Did you see his notes?”
“I’ve already told you my husband threw them away as soon as he got hold of the sheet of paper!”
“Right, the only thing to do is speak to him. He won’t have lost his memory, surely.”
“And what help would that be to you? It would only confirm the fact that you have to look for someone else for your plan to succeed.”
“Maybe. But Paul’s had enough time to think about this name and he’ll doubtless have come up with another clue to help us.”
Tommy rushed out of the room like a man who won’t be deterred or satisfied with a mere suggestion. He crossed the corridor and entered the room where they had left Paul. Celine and the white-coated woman followed him. The man they had drugged was still slumped in the same place.
“We’ve got to wake him up!”
“Sir, the effects of the injection won’t fade for another couple of hours. I can’t do anything to bring him round.”
“Then you’d better invent something, Doctor! I’ve no intention of wasting any more time.”
The woman walked out of the room in search of a brilliant idea that would counteract the effects of controlled sleep, leaving Celine and Tommy in an atmosphere of blind complicity that only made them feel uncomfortable.
“You won’t convince my husband to help you. There’s no way you can buy his honesty.”
“Perhaps I’ve just not found the right method yet. Anyway, you were like him too until I played the right card. Everyone has a weak spot. Yours was revenge against fate.”
“I’ll be damned for what I’ve done and so will you for what you made me do.”
“Fine. Now we’ve established that your curse will probably hex us for all eternity, help me to pick him up. Your freedom depends on what he says.”
The doctor strode back into the room, holding a syringe and a phial containing red liquid.
“This should wake him up pretty quickly. Hold him still. The side effects will make him very agitated and he’ll have uncontrollable tremors at first.”
She went to Paul’s side and injected the serum into his right arm. After a few seconds, his eyes flew open and his pain was obvious to those watching. The tremors came immediately afterwards. Paul screamed.
“Paul! Look at me, Paul!”
“Celine! What happened? Where’s Will? I can’t stop shaking. What have you done to me, you bastards?”
“The effect will only last for a few minutes – the doctor said so. Try to stay calm. Look at me, Paul.”
Tommy intervened, without showing the least sign of compassion for a man who was trying to hold his family together and be loyal to his conscience.
“Sorry, folks, but I haven’t got much time left. Listen, Paul. Your son wrote this a few minutes ago. You know what it means, don’t you?”
Paul tried to focus and stop his body from trembling. When he understood what was written, anger swamped his mind and put paid to any attempt to calm himself and become lucid.
“No! It’s impossible! You showed him those numbers, didn’t you? Damn you to hell! Will! Where’s my son? What have you done to his brain?”
“Your son is dead. Now try to concentrate on solving this problem.”
“Noooo! Celine! What have you done? How could you?”
“Calm down, Paul. I did it for us. And for him too. He needed to be freed from his illness; it was destroying him.”
He couldn’t breathe for desperation. He was going to collapse again. The emotion was too powerful for his heart to bear. Tommy turned to the doctor.
“Give him some more of that stuff. I can’t have him fainting again.”
“But sir. He could die!”
With Tommy’s hands squeezing her neck, it was obvious she couldn’t disobey his orders. Tommy slowly and deliberately repeated his words in her ear.
“Give him another injection right now!”
She got the message, picked up the syringe and drew more serum from the phial. Paul didn’t have the strength to resist and Celine was too scared and overwhelmed to help her husband. A few seconds later, the adrenalin took effect once more and Paul regained consciousness. Tommy stepped closer, his attitude one of menace towards the man who had no intention of cooperating.
“Right. Let’s start over. Your son wrote Ryan A. Mr. O’Neal’s name on this piece of paper not half an hour ago. You know who he is, don’t you? Tell me what else Will wrote when he woke from the coma the first time he saw this sequence of prime numbers.”
“You bastard! I won’t tell you anything! As soon as I can move, I’ll kill you with my bare hands! Let me see my son!”
“I don’t think it would be much comfort to you. He didn’t suffer, if that’s any consolation. Your wife was there watching over him. And make no mistake, your body is so full of dope, you won’t be able to move until tomorrow. We’ve got exceptionally refined drugs here.”
Paul turned his anguished gaze to his wife, but she didn’t have the courage to look him in the eye.
“Celine! How could you? He’s our child. I thought you were happy.”
“No, Paul. I wasn’t happy at all. I’ve never been happy. I’ve never had your will-power. I’ve never been able to accept this fate. I cursed it for crossing my path. My strength has always been in taking revenge. I couldn’t live with pain in my heart. And if you think about it, neither could you!”
“You’re lying! I loved Will. What’s happened to you?”
“I loved him as well, Paul. That’s one of the reasons why I decided to free him.”
“You haven’t freed him! You’ve killed him! He wanted to live!”
“How can you think that? There was such desperation in his eyes! I saw his suffering every day – every day as he looked to me for the help I could never give him!”
Tommy abruptly put a stop to the family quarrel.
“Let’s postpone your squabbling to some other time. Paul, tell me what Will wrote.”
“You don’t seem to get it, asshole. He wrote go screw yourself.”
“Right. Just as I thought. Let’s see if the idea of being left on your own makes you change your mind.”
With the speed born of military training and the ferocity of a lion seizing its prey, Tommy grabbed Celine by the throat and pointed his gun at her temple.
“Let’s see if I’ve got it now. Do you mean to tell me that you can’t remember what your son wrote?”
The woman tried to wriggle away, but his hold on her neck was too tight to fight.
“Let her go!”
“Tell me what I want to know!”
“I can’t remember! I read O’Neal’s name and that’s all! Leave her alone!”
“OK. Let’s see if you’re lying.”
He turned the gun on the doctor and shot her without thinking twice. She gave a deep sigh as she was felled by the force of gravity, the enemy of those who lose control of their own actions. Celine and Paul were frozen, the taste of fear in their mouths at the sight of such determination on the part of their captor. They didn’t have time to make a sound or change their minds before Tommy pointed his gun at the other woman in the room, who was still alive only to show them death.
“The next bullet will be for her!”
“No! I’ve told you what you wanted to know! I swear! I swear! Nothing else was written on that sheet of paper. My son never wrote anything else. He woke up and wrote that name. Let her go! Please!”
“What does it mean? How could he know that name? Did you mention it?”
“No! He never listened to anyone unless it was about math or if someone offered him a drink of chocolate. He’d never heard that name. It didn’t mean anything to him until he saw the prime numbers. Then he went mad. His brain must have elaborated such a complex formula that that was the only way to write it down. It’s the truth! You’ve got to talk to O’Neal. It’s the only way of knowing what it means. Let us go!”
“All right. I’ll talk to O’Neal.”
He took his hand away from Celine’s neck and she began to suck in air. She threw herself into her husband’s arms, begging forgiveness for an action that had brought only pain.
“Paul, forgive me! What have I done? I’ve killed our child! May God damn me!”
“Celine, honey. I’m not the one who must forgive you. May God take pity on your soul. Will didn’t deserve to die. He wanted to live.”
The woman began to wail as her husband sentenced her to a life of paying for endless sins in the depths of her soul.
Tommy watched the pitiful scene of two human beings unworthy of living. He had always thought that whoever couldn’t reconcile his or her actions didn’t deserve redemption, but he had made an agreement and the politician in him had to honor it. In politics, however, most promises are only made as a means to an end. He moved away from the couple and took the phone from the desk. The person at the other end answered immediately.
“This is Queen. Bring the professor.”
He hung up without waiting for a reply and turned to look at Paul and Celine. He had decided to keep his word and let them go. But now he moved towards them with the natural manner of one who has power in his blood, pointed his gun and shot them without waiting to hear the useless protestations of two souls who didn’t deserve his pity. He couldn’t afford to leave any traces in his pursuit of the all-powerful throne.
Chapter 33
The chocolate was hot and Jonathan immediately saw the beneficial effect in his grandson’s eyes as it warmed his heart as well as his body. Every time he looked at him, he felt a deep tenderness. He desperately wanted to do something to save that small angel, but he could only humor his whims; hot chocolate was a good start.
“Grandpa? Do you believe in fate?”
The old man was caught unawares and almost choked. The coughing fit gave him time to collect himself.
“What? What do you know about fate?”
“I’ve always wondered what we’re doing here, on earth. And I was wondering if you asked yourself the same question.”
“Will! You’re ten years old. You should be talking to me about the game you want for Christmas!”
“Games are no fun anymore. I prefer reading and thinking.”
A shiver slid down Jonathan’s back so slowly he imagined a furrow being traced along his backbone. He thought about why such a small child would waste time looking for answers to questions that even he failed to understand after a whole lifetime. Then he tried to humor him by satisfying his thirst for knowledge.
“And what conclusions have you come up with, my lad?”
“Well, I think that our purpose is to look for happiness.”
“And have you succeeded? Are you happy?”
“I think so. I love Mom and you. And today I even met my Dad. What about you, Grandpa? Are you happy?”
Jonathan’s surprise turned to anguish. He had always searched for an answer to that, albeit in vain. He never imagined he would hear his grandson ask that question; he was so young that all he had worried about until a short time ago was his mother’s milk. Now, there he was, sitting opposite, his eyes shining and brimming with curiosity, drinking hot chocolate and searching the eyes of an old man for a serenity that, unknowingly, he already possessed. What was happening was the exact opposite of what should
happen: young Will was teaching old Jonathan a short lesson on life.
“My happiness is tied to yours. And if you’re happy, well, so am I.”
“You miss Grandma, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. I miss her more than sunshine on dark days; more than water in droughts. But her absence has brought you. If she were still here, you wouldn’t exist.”
“So fate made us meet?”
“It’s an odd point of view, but, yes, I think fate had a hand in it.”
“And what about the devil? Do you think he exists?”
“Will! What kind of questions are these?”
“Come on, Grandpa! We have to talk about it sooner or later. And I don’t think there’s time to put it off any longer.”
The child gazed at him with an inquiring look on his face, waiting for a reaction to his words. He knew his grandfather hadn’t been expecting it. Jonathan realized that the person before him was much older than ten.
“Grandpa? Do you think I don’t know I’m sick? I’m a big boy now. You should have been ready for these questions. I listened to the conversations you and Mom had. I got it a couple of years ago, when you took me to the hospital and Mom hugged me after she’d spoken to the doctors. Don’t worry, I know what’s going to happen to me.”
Jonathan faltered, taken aback by the boy’s understanding and gravity in the face of such delicate matters. A tear rolled down his face; he was overcome by an emotion too powerful to control.
“How do you know what will happen to you?”
“I dreamed it. Don’t you know that our dreams are connected to the place we come from?”
“Which place?”
“Heaven. You often dream of Grandma, don’t you? You don’t really believe your mind is creating false images, do you? It’s Grandma coming to visit you, bringing the comfort you need to carry on living. I always dream of her too. She talks about you a lot.”
Jonathan’s tears ran down his face like mountain brooks.
The Devil's Fate Page 13