Linda laughed softly, taking his arm.
“Don’t worry, darling. I’m used to this kind of reaction. Nobody’s perfect, but I’ve always looked straight ahead, without taking much notice of the people around me. In fact, it’s more because I’m too distracted, not from arrogance or anything like that.”
“What do you think, shall we sneak out?” he asked, his voice full of hope. “If one more person whispers something about your tonight’s escort, I’m gonna throw this champagne in his or her face.”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I hope you didn’t feel offended. Curiosity and gossip are a pain in the ass. Just because I ignore them, I didn’t realize they could bother you.”
He smiled.
“Get real! You know me, I’m not bothered by many things in this world. I have a much too healthy ego to be disturbed ‘cause some strangers consider me your new male accessory.”
She laughed behind the crystal glass.
“Oh, yes, honey. Don’t tell me about the size and shape of your… ego. I know it too well!”
“Then let’s go. We can talk more about this topic at home,” he whispered huskily in an insinuating tone.
They sneaked through the guests like two teenagers, trying to make themselves invisible.
However, at the gallery’s exit, Linda froze, staring at the tall dark-haired man who was just coming in. His beautiful olive skin was unshaven, his shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, and the black suit was slightly wrinkled.
“Che piacere vederti, amore mio, sono venuto apposta per te!” he exclaimed stretching his arms toward her, but stopped short when he saw Gerard coming behind her and putting his hand on her waist.
“Tony, what are you doing here?” she asked the man in English when she recovered her voice.
The two men studied each other from head to toe, a hostile tension making its presence felt between them. Gerard must have also detected the trace of alcohol smell coming from the intruder. His hand tightened on her waist. Tony noticed the gesture and his face twisted in a scornful expression. He said:
“Ah, I see you have already replaced me. Didn’t take you long, did it? All men are after you like after a bitch in heat. It’s a shame she’s not to great and… experienced in bed, amico,” he addressed Gerard displaying a derisive smirk.
In a fraction of a second, Gerard’s fist connected with Tony’s nose. The devastating impact and sound of the blow provoked Linda a sickening sensation. Tony crashed to the ground holding his face in both hands, while through his fingers trickled drops of blood. He cursed them both in his native language, his voice distorted by pain. She didn’t think it was prudent to translate for Gerard the invectives Tony was throwing at them.
When the injured man tried to get up, Gerard held him to the ground by placing a foot on his chest. Then, directing his index threateningly toward him, said with deceiving calmness:
“Stay there. If you get up before we leave, I’m gonna break your neck, not just your fucking nose. If you get close to Linda one more time in your miserable life, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”
Linda felt the truth from that threat up to her bone marrow and a chill ran through her whole body. She knew her ex-husband felt it too, because he stayed down, while his clothes were slowly soaking in his own blood.
On the way home none of them spoke a single word. Linda was only grateful because nobody had assisted to the scene from the gallery’s entrance. It was late and dark, so Tony hadn’t managed to ruin her evening in front of the guests. But the words he’d said in front of Gerard burned her soul. Shame and insecurity had erased all her newly-found self-confidence.
Once they reached the gates, he climbed out and manually introduced the alarm code. The gates opened, then automatically closed behind the car. He parked in front of the house. After a few moments, he turned to her, while she sat with her head bent, nervously twisting the ring on her finger.
“That asshole was your ex, right?”
She nodded, without looking at him.
“And you really believed what the son of a bitch said? Or do you imagine I believed a single word of it?”
She wet her lips and took a deep breath.
“The fact that all men follow me like… Like he said, it’s not true. I’ve never even looked at another man while I was married to him. I’ve never sought nor wanted anyone’s attention. In spite of that, he always had crisis of jealousy from imaginary causes, he made me all kinds of reproaches, among them being… What he said about my… my performances in bed,” she finished, fighting hard with humiliation tears, her heart was pierced by an unbearable pain.
Gerard gazed at her for a long while in silence, in a strange way she couldn’t interpret. She’d found out just later he was simply marveling by her sweet naiveté which, in a strange way only men can experience, made him feel proud. He gently took her chin between his fingers and turned her head toward him, his eyes holding hers.
“Linda, I’m far from perfect. Before I met you I’ve had many women - all kinds, from innocents to those far more versed than me. But none of them was capable of making me love her. None of them was like you, so beautiful, so sweet, so attractive, so sensual… None of them managed to satisfy me in bed or outside of it the way you do.”
She looked away.
“You don’t have to try to restore my ego. Please, just drop it.”
“I’m not trying to do that,” he interrupted. “I’m only trying to make you see the truth. Leaving me aside, if that imbecile was unhappy with you, do you think he would’ve still came after you? Do you think he would’ve been jealous, or cared if you attract other men’s attention or not? He took advantage of your innocence to shatter your self-confidence so you’d stay with him. So you’d think you’re worth less, that he was doing you a favor by being beside you. This is the tactic used by these caricatures of so-called men,” he went on disgusted and the fury threatening to be unleashed radiated from his entire being. “I should have killed that fucking worm!”
She saw his fists and teeth clenched hard, as though he was trying to hang on to rational control, not to give in to the instinct of crushing something just for a moment of release and satisfaction.
Linda massaged her forehead, where a wave of pain was circling. Why, oh why did this shadow of her past reappear, to fall over their newly-discovered happiness and affect not only her, but also the man she loved? With a deep sigh, she opened the car door, saying:
“Let’s get a drink, please. Don’t say any more irrational things.”
“I’ve never talked more serious in my life, Linda. I would give anything to kill that bastard with my own hands!”
“And after that what?” she shouted, exasperated. “Rot in prison for a man who’s not worth it? Men don’t think, not even as much as that cat of mine!” she went on furiously heading to the house. “Are women the only beings in the world who have brains and reason? I can’t believe how…”
Thanks to the very high heels and the ink darkness, she stumbled, a sharp pain in her right ankle causing her to scream.
When he reached her, his ears were assaulted by the most inventive recital of cuss words he’d ever heard. She could bet that not even in the slimiest alleys from ill-famed neighborhoods had he heard words like those now coming from her mouth. She didn’t even try to stop it. Using frustration and pain as a pretext, she continued swearing, mixing English with Italian and possibly other languages as well.
“Are you alright, baby? Are you hurt, did you break anything?”
So saying, he carefully palpated both her ankles, making sure everything was intact.
“Wow… We have such an expansive vocabulary,” he said laughing, seeming extremely entertained. “You should give me lessons. Just a scratched knee, my love.”
As he gave her the verdict, he lifted her in his arms.
He comfortably installed her on the living room sofa, cleaned her scratch with antiseptic and applied a band-aid on top. Then he kissed her knee,
continuing to trace kisses on her tanned thighs, revealed by the up-lifted dress. His hot breath on her skin was doing wonders to calm her. When she felt his shoulders shaking with a soft laugh, she asked puzzled:
“What happened?”
“Nothing unusual,” he replied, then looked at her sheepishly. “If I tell you, will you blush?”
“Depends…”
“I was just thinking I’m not a teenager anymore, Linda. In fact, I’m far away from those days. However, I only need to look at you, to have you close, and my body reacts like a teenager’s,” he said, then grinned when he saw the two pink spots spreading over her heated cheeks. “I see you know what I mean.”
He bent to kiss her, but not having enough maneuvering space on the narrow sofa, he let himself slide to the floor. He lowered her on top of him, careful at her injured knee. He kissed and embraced her frantically, emanating desire and love, showing her through their bodies’ language how deep and intense his feelings were.
“I love you. I want you so much!” he whispered roughly. “You make me the happiest man on Earth.”
Because she felt the same and because, in a certain degree of intimacy, bodies can’t lie, Linda believed him. This wonderful revelation seemed to give her wings.
“I love you too, Gerard,” she whispered back, meaning it with all her heart.
Part Two – Pocket World
Chapter Fourteen
Monday started with the screeching shrill of the alarm clock, whose sound was scraping Gerard’s eardrums. He stretched out a hand, turning off the alarm before Linda could throw the clock to the floor, turning it into dozens of small pieces.
Since their plane departed at ten a.m., they’d stayed at her house - luggage and all - planning to take a cab to the airport.
After grabbing a quick shower, they had some breakfast, then dressed casually for the journey, in jeans, T-shirts and sneakers. Each had a single handbag as a luggage, containing some clothes and a few other essentials.
Mrs. Adams had come the previous evening to take Pirata to her own home. The cat had left a bit panicked, to Linda’s maternal despair. The woman had called a couple hours later to report Pirata was cheerful and had perfectly adapted, to the point that he’d become suspiciously friendly toward Dixie -Mrs. Adam’s neighbor’s cat.
“I hope I won’t be stuck with illegitimate grand-cats at this age,” Linda had told him.
Having checked the luggage one more time to make sure they had all they could possibly need during such a short trip, he called the cab company and ordered a car, giving them Linda’s address.
They reached the airport a little earlier than boarding time. After all formalities and check-ups were done, they finally embarked.
Gerard found out startled that his lover was terrified of flying, as well as of any height over ten feet. Considering this, he felt obliged to distract her by talking almost non-stop during the three and a half hours flight.
“Tell me more about your friend,” she almost begged him, clasping his hand, breathing like an asthmatic in the throes of an attack.
“Breathe calm and deeply, my love, or you’ll hyperventilate and faint,” he advised. “Now, let me tell you about Jean-Paul. He’s almost sixty, born in Paris. He and my father met during the military service, which was mandatory back then, and they’d remained friends. Jean-Paul graduated the Medical School of Paris. Since then he’s been doing this job with complete abnegation.”
“So how did he land in Romania?”
“He’s married to a Romanian woman, Mariana, but I don’t know how they met. A while back he opened his own private clinic in Cluj-Napoca, the city where they live.”
“And he already started curing people with this treatment he invented?” she asked interested, seeming to have forgotten about her discomfort.
“We have to clarify one thing, baby. Jean-Paul didn’t invent this treatment. There were others who discovered the healing characteristics of hellebore. They’d even created medication to cure some forms of cancer using it. In fact, everywhere in the world have been discovered methods of treating cancer, HIV, etcetera. But they were never put out on the market. Shortly after an announcement was made regarding such a magic treatment’s discovery, nothing was ever heard again about it.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Good question, baby,” he replied sighing, arranging himself more comfortably in his window seat. “The most plausible and popular hypothesis is that there’s a worldwide conspiracy. A group of people who don’t want these diseases to be cured, for reasons known only by them.”
“People? You mean monsters!” she exclaimed horrified. “Who could do such a thing? Who could indirectly kill so many millions of suffering souls by hiding the existence of a potential cure? Only sick, diabolic minds could do that.”
“Some very powerful people or groups of people, Linda. People who control the human kind. Who can know what their purpose is? It can be one as simple as avoiding the planet being over-populated and all natural resources being exhausted, for example.”
“But it’s inhuman! There are other solutions – the balanced division of those resources, the elimination of waste and this consumption-oriented society. Not use as a weapon illness, despair and premature death…”
She stopped abruptly, a thought flashing through her mind.
“Gerard, if you will succeed in developing a more complex treatment from the snake venom, to treat many forms of cancer, you will become known. What do you think will happen then? What if someone will try to silence you too?” she asked panicked.
He looked through the window at the clouds which resembled huge cotton rolls. Then he said, with a strange sadness in his voice:
“Linda, I think there’s a thin chance this might happen. I don’t mean about the fame, I couldn’t care less about that. I’m talking about the fact that I could heal extended or complex forms of cancer. There’s a thin chance because the treatment must be a local one. It’s much too dangerous to be used systemically, do you understand? I can use it for a melanoma - a malignant mole, maybe for some nodules or external tumors, but… In severe cases, I think it could do more damage than good. Nevertheless, every life is important to me, so I’m gonna keep fighting with all weapons, just to save even one.”
They sank into silence for a while, meditating on all the atrocities hidden behind daily life’s trivialities.
“Speaking of Romania,” he resumed, “there are a lot of valuable doctors and institutes out there. For instance, I’ve heard of a doctor who created a line of products made from insects. He uses them to heal all kinds of diseases, hepatitis, even some forms of cancer.”
“Drugs made from insects?” she exclaimed with an involuntary grimace.
He smiled.
“Yeah. If I’m not mistaken, it’s something to do with kitchen bugs’ salivary glands, but I’m not sure. There’s also an institute called Cantacuzino. Among multiple valuable medical discoveries, they’d created an extraordinary vaccine against numerous strains of the flu virus. It had become known and efficient in all Europe, until it stopped its production.”
“Why?”
“Unknown cause. Lack of funds, I seem to recall this was the reason invoked, but, again, I’m not sure. Anyway, the point is that, although worldwide Romania is considered just a lousy third world country, they have some very valuable people there, not only doctors. Jean-Paul is fascinated by their history. He told me a bit about it and I confess I was impressed.”
“Hmm,” she said thoughtfully. “I’m beginning to become more and more intrigued by this country.”
Their plane landed right on time on the Otopeni airport in Bucharest. They were convinced they would confront with major communication difficulties, none of them knowing a single word in Romanian. However, they were pleasantly surprised to learn almost everyone seemed to speak at least a rudiment of English. From the airport they got into a cab, explaining to the driver, using words and gestures, that they wa
nted to go to a car rental center. In a strongly accented English, the driver guaranteed them they will promptly reach their destination, which in fact they had.
The car rental staff’s English was much superior to that of the cab driver. The couple decided over a blue Jeep. After filling all the forms and paying the necessary fee in Euros, they entered the capital’s traffic. It seemed extremely crowded, even chaotic.
At first, Linda had expressed her concern because everything seemed to be backward, compared to Great Britain. The car’s wheel was on the left side and they had to drive on the right side of the road, a thing to which she wasn’t accustomed. Besides, distance was measured in kilometers, not miles. But Gerard, who had driven in France as well as in England, quickly adjusted to the new road conditions. They both breathed easily when they got out of town.
They had a classic map he’d printed from the Internet before leaving. Linda kept turning it on all sides, trying to understand the route, cursing expansively all the Geography classes she’d skipped. In all appearance, it was a three hundred and twenty kilometers distance to Cluj-Napoca.
The highway was quite crowded, so Gerard maintained the speed to a reasonable limit, taking advantage to admire some of the scenery.
As he’d expected, Romania was an extremely beautiful country, with every form of relief. The road began at lowlands level. When they weren’t crossing villages or towns, on both sides of the road they saw large fields of corn, sun-flower, wheat and other cultures they couldn’t identify.
Here and there, they had the feeling they hovered into an ocean of green under the clear sky. They stopped by the roadside to admire the magnificent fields and move their numb muscles. The air was much cleaner than in London, having a special fragrance. Every breeze carried a scent of freshly mown grass.
They resumed their journey. The road was sprinkled with curves, the more so as the altitude grew and they entered the hills area. They both yawned, gulping to release the pressure in their ears. After another hour, Linda spotted a sign which read RESTAURANT –a word whose meaning was unmistakable – and urged him to stop in the parking lot.
Mirage Beyond Flames (Coriola) Page 9