The Unforgiven Sin

by R. Twine

  ‘I find it hard to believe what I’ve just seen and heard,’ I replied. Having seen and heard these revelations, I felt a warm lump forming in my throat. I felt my legs becoming rubbery but still I willed myself to continue this unpleasant talk about my past. ‘We, the people, regard ourselves as clever and independent beings, we think we’re our own ancestors, that our success is a thing totally of our own making… But this is not so! Because you, the invisible forces, always stand behind our backs, guiding and controlling us. But were we really created to be expendable material for your crackbrain experiments? This is not the destiny I’ve chosen for myself! God, how naïve I was! You’re right only in one thing: if The Creator really wanted to safeguard us against you, He would surely do it. Does it mean you have a common goal? Tell me, why have these spirits broken free from The Book?’ I asked.

  ‘They’ve done it to be able to help you,’ Satanail answered. ‘You’ll be able to witness your past lives, because you – unconsciously – follow your past, that won’t let you go. And you won’t let it go either, Miriam! Some think that many people died because they had something to do with me. In actuality, every human being is connected to me by invisible links. Every human being! Father wouldn’t tolerate violence, nor would he tolerate those who resorted to violence. I know it very well because I once was in charge of maintaining order in His Kingdom. But, unfortunately, envy and quarreling happen even between angels, and I’m the example,’ Satanail added. ‘I must be off now.’ He came closer to me and looked straight into my eyes. ‘We’ll meet again soon, Miriam,’ he said setting his foot on the tail of his cobra that was beginning to wind around my body.

  The spirits that left the book merged into half-darkness, giving place to the demons that suddenly came as if out of nowhere and surrounded us. The howling of wind intermingled with the howling of these abominable creatures looking like a horrible travesty of man.

  ‘See you soon,’ said Satanail and disappeared along with his servants.

  I found myself standing in the same secret room, and lying before me was The Book of Lives. After some hesitation, I opened it – there were only blank pages inside…

  Chapter 33

  I went upstairs to the bedroom and, trying not to wake Michael up, crawled into bed.

  ‘I’m awake, Miriam; I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said quietly. ‘Are you happy with what you've found during these days?’

  ‘Yes, I am, Michael. I’m sorry for kind of using you for my own purposes, but I’m not likely to ever come to this house again.’

  ‘You’re not only using me, but my father, too – along with his library,’ he said jokingly and added solemnly. ‘I’m going to leave by the end of the week, too. I guess I'll stay a few more days in my apartment until I settle the formalities concerning my inheritance. And then I’ll set off for Paris.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said quietly.

  ‘There’s nothing for you to be sorry about,’ Michael echoed back. ‘My life will never be the same. I’m in love with you, Miriam…I don’t want us to live on opposite sides of the Atlantic. I don’t want to part with you. I’m even mulling over leaving my wife…’

  ‘Michael, I live with another man. And though we’re not married, I can’t leave him. Don’t make any rush decisions. Think of your wife and your child,’ I said, trying to talk him into being reasonable. ‘You can’t leave them! We’ve only known each other for a few weeks, Michael!’

  ‘But what about you, Miriam? Why can’t you leave Samuel? Do you love him? What is it that links you two together?’

  ‘I have strong feelings for him,’ I said, reluctant to go into details. ‘I’m crazy about you, I like having sex with you. Samuel is good at making love, too, but you simply make me swoon… I have yet to understand whether I love you or if it is just sex and nothing more.’

  ‘Miriam, people often find it hard to explain why they love somebody, and what for. You are the second and the last love of my life; therefore I’m ready to leave my wife to be with you. What do you say?’

  ‘I’ll give it a thought,’ I said playfully and mounted Michael. ‘Now let’s move on to something a lot more interesting – let’s make love! We’re short on time!’

  Samuel met me at the airport.

  ‘Oh, Miriam, I missed you so much!’ he said, full of joy, running up to me with a bunch of red roses in his hand. ‘How was your trip?’

  ‘Everything went very well, I’m glad to see you, Samuel. I missed you, too,’ I said, throwing myself into his arms.

  I didn’t want to tell him lies but I couldn’t do otherwise at the moment. Samuel didn’t have to know about Michael. I was tormented by scruples but I still didn’t know how to resolve the situation I had at hand.

  I entered my room. Standing on my bed there was a scarlet vial with a boiling liquid in it. The little angel was sitting nearby with a sly look on his face. Lying on a snow-white pillow there was a bouquet of black roses…

  Our plane landed in Nice. We entered an arrival hall – Natalie and Elian, having noticed me, dashed from their seats to give me a bear hug. I couldn’t hold my emotions in either; involuntarily, my eyes welled up with tears.

  ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe I’m home again with the two girls I love most! I missed you so much!’ I kept saying, while kissing my girlfriends on their cheeks.

  Reporters surrounded us and began asking questions all at once. It was Samuel who bore the brunt: long accustomed to giving interviews, he smiled towards his right, his left and his back, winking to pretty girls and turning hardball questions into jokes. That’s where he was at his best. Before getting into the car, Samuel let the paparazzi take several shots of him, and then we dashed, unimpeded, along the Cote-d’Azur towards my home.

  Several days later we organized a reception in a restaurant. There were friends and relatives, colleagues and workers from the modeling agency where I had worked. I still kept silent about my decision to abandon the modeling business. The career of an actress wasn’t appealing to me either, now that I had come to know a lot about it. Those were just stepping stones on my path. And now I found myself at the crossroads. Jack’s words about my potential as a good writer had impressed themselves deeply onto my soul. I had a lot to say to the world. I was living within my last earthly incarnation; therefore, I had to leave something eternal in my wake. The Angel of Death could come to collect me anytime, and I didn’t feel like putting anything off for the future.

  The party came off well. I bathed in everybody’s admiration; I was heaped with compliments and congratulations. Marie Tailor attempted to seduce me with a fresh contract. She chatted incessantly, pouring down on me the names of prominent companies eager to get my image for their brands. I smiled, nodding my head, but all this was already of no interest to me. In my thoughts, I was very far away: I was thinking about Michael.

  I missed him; his hands and lips, his aroma kept coming back to me… But, also, it was hard for me to imagine my life without Samuel: we had a lot in common, much more than just mutual attraction. We understood each other without words; we shared an almost identical world view, and our tastes were very much alike. I needed both of them: both Sam and Michael. They were very different; each one of them made his own difference in my life; therefore, I didn’t feel like choosing between them.

  On the very first evening after our arrival to France, Samuel proposed to me. Standing on one knee in front of me, hand on heart, he said solemnly.

  ‘Miriam, my love, I finally got up enough courage to take this step. I love you so much! You’re the woman I’ve been dreaming of all my life. You’re the one who showed me what love is and set my soul on fire. Miriam, I give you my heart. Will you give me your hand and be my wife!’

  He fished out a small box out of his pocket and, putting out his hand, gave it to me. Resting on a velvet pad there was a ring with a big ruby bordered with diamonds. Its scarlet glitter mesmerized me with its magnificence.

  ‘It’s so beautiful!’ I ex
claimed and quickly put it on my finger.

  This blood-red ruby suddenly reminded me of the woman I once saw in the company of the Prince of Darkness. It was identical to the ring he’d given her back then.

  ‘Do you like it?’ Sam asked quietly.

  ‘The ring’s terrific, Sam!’ I exclaimed in admiration.

  ‘This ruby used to belong to a member of a royal family. I don’t know who exactly that person was, and nobody does, really. I was just stunned by its beauty. When I saw it I immediately knew you had to have it. Miriam, my love, I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I want you to be the mother of my children. You’re the only woman I will ever want in my life. I will love you forever!’

  ‘Samuel, this is a very serious step indeed… I need some time to think it over…’ I said, totally confused. Sam had taken me by surprise.

  ‘Take as much time as you need. I’m not going to pressure you for an answer right away,’ Samuel said, pulling me close and kissing me tenderly on the cheek.

  How could I possibly leave such a man?

  Time flew by very fast. How good it was to be home! My grandparents had moved to live in Paris again, and we went to stay with them for a couple of days. They received Samuel very well; they clearly took a quick liking to him. And so did Natalie: she and Samuel became friends. This made me very happy because all of my loved ones were together; almost all of them.

  A month passed unnoticed. It was time for Samuel to go back to Los Angeles. They were already waiting for him on the set.

  The evening before his departure Natalie called me; she was very agitated.

  ‘Miriam, we have to meet right now,’ she said in a trembling and broken voice.

  ‘All right, Nat, but what’s up?’ I asked.

  ‘Come to the bar where we used to meet – do you remember the place? I’ll tell you everything,’ Natalie replied.

  ‘I’m coming,’ I said and my heart started aching in a dark foreboding of something terrible.

  I was in the bar twenty minutes later. Nat was sitting at a table in the corner, nervously tearing a doily into small pieces.

  ‘Well, Nat, what’s happened?’ I asked. My heart started aching and I pressed my palm against my chest to quell the dull pain. ‘Come on, fire away! I’m very worried about you.’

  ‘No need to worry about me, Miriam. It’s about yourself that you should be worried. And I am very worried about you,’ she replied.

  ‘I hope you’re not serious?’ I asked, bewildered.

  ‘Yes, I am. I’m deadly serious,’ said Natalie gesturing to a waiter. ‘Two coffees, please,’ she said and, having taken her time until he was out of hearing distance, went on. ‘Do you remember asking me to find out something about Brinstein? Well, several days ago his wife fell from the balcony of her study and died. It looked like an accident, but her father insisted on investigation into the circumstances of her death. It turned out that her husband is going to receive a hefty sum of life insurance money. Also, it happens that that she’d turned her assets in the company over to him. After being informed about his wife’s death, Brinstein returned to France. The investigation’s already underway. There’s a queer similarity: after the death of his father Brinstein became the heir of a decent amount of capital, and he was in France at the time of the murder, so he had a one hundred per cent alibi. But the second accident happened in accordance with the same scenario: his wife dies in Paris while he’s in the US; he inherits millions and has a rock-solid alibi. By the way, there have been similar coincidences before… One of Michael’s family friends who had worked in the same corporation made a will several months ago stating that Brinstein was going to inherit his share of the business, and presto! this friend of his – quite unexpectedly – died an early death. As a result, Michael is currently a controlling stockholder. All this is very suspicious,’ said Nat, between sips of coffee. ‘I’m very worried about you. Michael has been building up his capital since his early childhood at the expense of dying relatives and friends suspiciously eager to turn over to him everything they owned. Be careful, Miriam! He’s very dangerous!’ Natalie warned me.

  I was listening to her with bated breath. When the penny dropped, a slight shudder ran through my body. My coffee had gone cold long ago.

  ‘Nat,’ I said after a small pause. ‘He’s not a murderer. He’s a very good man. I deeply regret that this has happened, but I don’t think Michael had anything to do with it. It’s a fatal coincidence. Misfortunes plague him.’

  ‘Those misfortunes made him a very rich man, Miriam. Don’t you find it strange?’ said Nat.

  ‘I see what you’re hinting at. But he can’t be blamed for the succession of deaths that has been trailing behind him since his childhood. This circumstance makes the two of us alike: we attract death into our lives; there are strange inexplicable phenomena happening all around us all the time. I don’t know why this happens, but one thing is clear: if I succeed in finding out why it happens to me, I’ll definitely find the answer to the question about why the same happens to him. And now he must be utterly desperate in his grief. Poor Michael,’ I said with sadness in my voice.

  ‘Miriam, you are talking like a woman in love who’s gone utterly and completely crazy!’

  ‘He’s my lover. And you were quite right in saying that I’m crazy about him. Not a day passes by without my thinking about him. He hasn’t called me for almost a fortnight, and all my attempts to get through to him were in vain. Now I can see why…’

  ‘But what about Sam? Does he suspect anything?’ asked Nat, clearly bewildered.

  ‘No. He knows nothing. At least, that’s what it looks like on the surface of it. I’m dating Michael in secret. But I love Samuel, too…’ I said with a heavy sigh. ‘I found myself in an unclear situation, and I don’t know how things will finally play out. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Sam proposed to me.’ I paused and then went on. ‘You see, Michael was mulling over leaving his wife so that he could be with me.’

  ‘Miriam, I don’t like the sound of this at all, there’s something weird and spooky about it,’ said Natalie, shaking her head. ‘Just imagine what would happen if your affair with Michael comes to the surface one day! It’s going to be a terrible row! Everybody will surely start digging into your private life – can you imagine it if only for a second?! As for me, I’m sure it was a murder. Somebody threw his wife off the balcony. I’m one hundred per cent sure this was exactly the way it happened. Michael clearly had a hand in it, whether you like it or not.’

  ‘Why hasn’t Michael told me about this himself? He’s in Paris now, after all…’ I said in bewilderment.

  ‘My guess is that he’s afraid of his telephone being tapped. It’s highly likely that he’s currently under secret surveillance. My father wouldn’t divulge the details of the case, but this is the first assumption that comes to mind. Look, what if Michael has taken a break to make up his mind what to do with his next victim?!’

  ‘Please, stop these ridiculous allegations!’ I said, outraged. ‘When you meet him you’ll change your mind, I’m sure.’

  ‘Miriam, my instincts tell me nothing good is going to come out of your affair with Michael. You have to understand that he’s not the man your eyes, veiled over with love, are seeing. There’s something dark hiding within him, just think of all those deaths you claim to be just accidents,’ Natalie insisted.

  ‘Indeed, all this may seem weird and interconnected. But what if you’re mistaken? What if someone just made up his or her mind to ruin his life by making all these facts fit with each other, while he is totally innocent?’ I countered.

  ‘Everything’s possible, Miriam. It looks like there’s an individual or even an organization which intentionally “culls” some of those people who surround Michael by masterminding these murders. It’s unclear why they are doing it, but every one of these “incidents” makes Brinstein still richer though simultaneously entering him in the list of suspects. Or can it be th
at he personally co-operates with professional hit men? My dear Miriam, I don’t believe in such coincidences!’

  ‘But what about me, Natalie? There were as many tragic coincidences in my life, too! Maybe, someone’s stalking us, bringing death into our lives? If your theory is true, it means there are people who will stop at nothing to get what they want. And personal gain is the only thing they want.’

  ‘Miriam, I’m awfully worried about you. Suppose he wants to marry you for whatever benefit he seeks and this is the reason he decided to get rid of his wife? Who’s the next on his list – maybe, Samuel? Or somebody else? Or you yourself?’ fumed Natalie.

  ‘Come on, Nat… I haven’t given Sam an answer yet. There’s no way Michael could know that he proposed to me. After all, Sam doesn’t have anything to do with all this!’ I said angrily.

  ‘He doesn’t? Are you sure? By the way, it was Samuel who gave you the late Phil’s telephone number!’ Natalie recollected.

  ‘Samuel is an actor, and several years ago he, indeed, rejected the offer of playing a role in the film about the devil,’ I said.

  ‘Have you checked this information?’

  ‘Sure I have.’

  ‘You don’t trust Samuel, do you?’ asked Nat. ‘It appears you don’t put your complete trust in any of them…’

  ‘I don’t even know what to say,’ I replied in confusion.