Mirage Beyond Flames (Coriola)

by De Ross, Melinda

  Gerard remained stunned, his gaze fixed on her, as though trying to make some sense from her words. Eventually, he asked in a tone straining with forced calmness:

  “Can you please translate for me what the hell you’re talking about?”

  She watched him contemptuously, seeing the innocent expression on his face, feeling the acute need to slap him.

  “I saw you, Gerard, so don’t bother playing dumb. I was just climbing the stairs to your apartment and I saw you kissing that second-rate whore on your doorstep. Do you pay her or does she offer you her services for free? God, to think I’ve slept with you!” she exclaimed, overwhelmed by a hysterical humor. “I hope at least you protected yourself with her, Doc, or should I take the HIV test? Considering the number of men who probably tumbled her…”

  He looked at her speechless, gradually grasping the situation. He pushed a hand through his hair, seemingly trying to find a right way to approach the matter.

  “If you say you were there when Danielle kissed me, accent on she kissed me, have you also noticed I didn’t participate with anything to that gesture?”

  “I didn’t see you to protest!” she yelled.

  “Because I didn’t have time!” he replied raising his voice in turn. “She took me by surprise. I’ve no idea what got into that woman. I know her for months and yes, it’s true she came on to me a few times, but I always made it clear for her I wasn’t interested.”

  “Looks like you weren’t clear enough. I wonder what other things you did together, against your will. It’s remarkable what power of persuasion can have a pair of fake tits on a man,” she scorned. “Imagine, I thought you were too noble to fall for this kind of frivolous traps. I came to surprise you, because I couldn’t sleep without you anymore. My God, how could I have been such an idiot?” she shouted again, landing a mighty punch on the side of the Jeep.

  “How could you be with me and not realize I’d never cheat on you?” he roared. “How can you judge me only by a scene that wasn’t what you’re imagining? Did you really not notice I didn’t have time to make one single gesture before that woman kissed me? How should I know what was in her head? She came to return the key to my apartment, I gave her the gifts and she left. That was all. I told her I was in a hurry and I truly was. I rushed downtown before the shops closed, to buy you this,” he told her furiously, getting a small, dark, velvet box out of his pocket. “I was in a rush to get over here faster, because I can’t go on living without having you in my arms, without having you by my side night and day.”

  She remained motionless, looking dumbfounded at the box in his hand. Gerard opened it hesitantly, revealing a delicate gold ring with a diamond sparkling pale in the moonlight.

  “I came here, Linda, to ask you to marry me. To spend your entire life with me, to let me show you I love you more with every moment. I came here to tell you that you’re everything that motivates me and gives me purpose.”

  She still couldn’t speak. Her gaze was fixed on the diamond’s mesmerizing reflections. Her soul and mind were spinning in chaos and everything was confusing, like this unexpected turn of events. After a while, she lifted her gaze to him, exclaiming incredulously:

  “You… You can’t be serious! We’ve known each other less than a month and you’re telling me you wanna marry me? And after I saw you kissing another woman? You… you can’t be serious. This is crazy,” she stuttered.

  “Not to me, it isn’t. I didn’t need a month, but only a moment to know I fell in love with you, that I wanna spend the rest of my life with you,” he said simply. “But you… You never believed in me, in us, you never wanted this relationship. You were always distant and apprehensive. What hurts me the most though is that, after all the moments we shared together, you could doubt me, even for a moment. No matter what you saw, you should have at least given me the benefit of the doubt. You should’ve felt in your heart I could never be interested in another woman, as long as you’re the most important thing I’ve had in my life.”

  Linda read an infinite sadness and disappointment in his voice. She noticed alarmed his eyes were shining with tears. She’d never seen such emotion and despair in those eyes.

  Before she can say another word, Gerard left the ring box fall, with a sad sound, then he told her, in the same tone:

  “I’m sorry, Linda. I didn’t want you to feel constrained. I just asked you to marry me and your reaction… says everything. I won’t bother you again. You can believe what you want about Danielle and me. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  He turned his back on her with an air of finality. With the posture of a man who carried the entire world’s heaviness on his shoulders, he climbed in his car and drove away, leaving her standing in the middle of the road, next to her own crookedly-parked car.

  She fell to her knees and picked up the tiny box, gently touching the diamond. Even its glow seemed to reflect an enormous sadness, sending rays that pierced her pain-numbed heart. She cried alone, in darkness, holding the small velvet box tight to her chest, consumed by regrets and doubts, and most of all by the black abyss, which seemed to absorb her entire being.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  She spent the night crying, hugging one of Gerard’s shirts that had accidentally remained in her closet, trying to absorb love and warmth from his scent impregnated in the white cotton. Pirata cuddled against her, caught in his mistress’ endless sadness, feeling the despair in which she wallowed. She stroked him, gazing into his eyes, which reflected intelligence and understanding.

  Pirata had always managed to alleviate her soul, but in these horrible moments it seemed the wounds would never heal. Dozens of times she reached to the telephone on her nightstand, determined to call him, yet something inexplicable stopped her every time. She tried telling herself it was the image of him kissing that woman, but she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything. Only when daylight began dissolving the darkness she fell into a superficial sleep, where the reality’s nightmares followed her ruthlessly.

  She woke up a few hours later with a terrible headache. Her eyes were so swollen and gritty from crying, she could barely open them. She felt unusually weak. Her stomach seemed to have constricted over night, reminding her she hadn’t eaten in over twelve hours.

  She got up and, swaying, headed to the bathroom, where she took an almost cold shower, trying to force her body and mind to function.

  In the kitchen she fed her cat, then managed with difficulties to swallow a croissant and some milk, forcing down each bite, repeating over and over in her mind she wasn’t going to destroy her health over a man, no matter what.

  She wandered around the house, dream-like, from room to room. Each thing reminded her in a way of him, of his smile, of his touch. The need to hold him triggered an almost physical pain in her, but Linda clenched her teeth in a vain attempt to chase away any thought of him.

  Although it was probably too early for shops to be open, she pulled on faded jeans and a T-shirt, hid her eyes behind an enormous pair of sunglasses and she went out to buy a new cell phone.

  She drove like a sleepwalker to a mall, bought the first phone she saw, without understanding a single thing of what the clerk was saying. The woman was so chatty Linda wanted to strangle her.

  Once she got into her car, she realized that, by breaking her old phone, she had lost all the phone numbers and contacts stored in the device’s memory card. She released all the curse words accumulated in her imagination, almost ready to smash the new phone. She, who usually had nerves of steel, had become an emotional wreck because of a man!

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, gathering each drop of inner strength she possessed, trying to collect herself. She had to start thinking rationally again. The first step was to try to recover her memory card. If miracles existed, it could have still been lying in front of Gerard’s apartment building. The thought of going there provoked her stomach to knot, but she had no other choice. All her phone numbers and important contacts we
re on that minuscule card. She would need weeks to gather only part of them. Perhaps being so tiny, the card had passed unnoticed. It seemed highly improbable, but she had to try.

  On the way to Gerard’s residence she had to drive by the clinic. As she approached HOPE, an inexplicable feeling overwhelmed her. She parked somewhere behind a van, close to the clinic’s entrance. She consulted her watch, knowing it was time for Gerard to come to work. She waited a few minutes, gazing at the cafeteria where they’d eaten ice cream the day they’ve met. That memory brought a new wave of pain and regret in her soul, but they couldn’t even compare to the emotion she felt when she saw his car appearing at the curve. The Jeep stopped right in front of the clinic, and Gerard emerged, holding a stack of files.

  Linda stopped breathing for a moment, her heart beating madly at his sight. He was dressed as usual, in jeans and a black shirt. Even from that distance, she noticed the dark circles framing his gorgeous eyes, now tired, lacking the vitality that gave them a special glow. He was unshaven and his movements reflected those of a man twice his age.

  Nevertheless, she thought he was splendid. An adolescent-like emotion of a scary intensity flashed through her. A tear rolled slowly down her cheek, without her being able to control it. Not wanting to be noticed, she breathed easily when he entered the building, not looking right or left. Mirroring her, he seemed to move like an automaton. He appeared broken, physically, mentally, as if his existence was as miserable and unhappy as hers.

  Linda bit her lip, which now wore a visible mark, without feeling pain anymore. Although she was vaguely conscious of the physical discomfort – result of a white night spent curled in bed crying – she felt much more acutely each wave of grief. She felt her spirit shattered, destroyed, torn. She simply felt incomplete.

  She started the engine and sped to his apartment. Once she got there, she parked on a side street and headed toward the place she remembered hurling her phone. She localized the tree against which the poor object had smashed. To her amazement, she found the cell’s components, one by one – a fragment of the display, most of the back carcass, some other pieces she couldn’t identify. Probably none of the cleaning crews had yet reached this area. In the grass, at the base of the tree, she caught a metallic glint. Bending, she discovered the card, which had flown off in the moment of impact. Satisfied by this small victory and praying it still worked, she rose, but came to a holt, finding herself face to face with the woman she had begun to consider a rival in the past twenty-four hours.

  Danielle, wearing a semi-transparent, minuscule dress and four inch heels, was watching her with an amused air.

  “Looking for something, doll?” she asked indolently.

  Linda had an urge to tear her eyes out bare-handed, but she gazed at her contemptuously up and down. In an infinite superior tone, which only high-class people can assume, she asked:

  “Have we met?”

  “I don’t think you had the pleasure, but I know who you are. Gerard has almost made an exhibit with your newspaper pictures. He’s sweet up to the pathetic point. I’ve never thought him to be so boring. From what I’ve heard, you know who I am too.”

  “You must be mistaken, uh… Miss. I don’t know who you are, nor do I want to.”

  Danielle propped a hand on her hip.

  “Your boyfriend almost killed me last night. I had the night off and, while I was sleeping, I woke up with the sound of his fists banging in my door. He woke up all the neighbors, it was quite a show… As he was heroically abstaining not to wring my neck, he was yelling that, because of me, he’d lost what he loved the most, meaning you.”

  Linda watched her silent, without even blinking.

  Danielle didn’t seem to wait for a reply. She went on, unfazed:

  “It never happened to me before that a man would be offended of my kissing him. It appears your boyfriend is an exception, from several points of view. I don’t need to explain why I felt the need to kiss him, it’s obvious for any woman who takes one look at him. Anyways, against my better judgment and for his benefit only, I’ll tell you the truth. He didn’t contribute with anything to the kiss you saw. On the contrary, if he had time, I’m sure he would’ve protested. I just couldn’t help myself. I believe you can understand that. In any case, I want you to know between me and him was never more than a simple friendship. He wanted it like that. Now, that too is over,” she concluded with an almost sad smile, showing Linda her arms, where twin bruises were beginning to darken. “I wanna say you’re to blame for these, but in fact, I know they’re the result of my lack of self-control.”

  The woman paused, probably waiting for a reply from Linda, but the latter remained stubbornly silent.

  Danielle sighed deeply.

  “In the end, I’ll tell you that, if you let a man like Gerard go, you’re an idiot. That man loves you more than anything, only a blind person could not see it. You should take off those fucking sunshades and take a good look at what you’ve thrown away.”

  With this, Danielle turned her back on her and left, swaying her generous hips, leaving Linda watching her dumbstruck.

  * * *

  Gerard buried his face between his palms, elbows propped on his old scared desk. He’d tried hard to concentrate on the stack of papers spread all around him, but finally he gave up. From the small radio-speaker, Laura Pausini’s crystalline voice was sending painful and unsuspectingly deep echoes in his heart, with each note of the song Strani Amori.

  Strange love. Gerard had guessed the meaning of those two words in Italian, that melodious language reminding him of her. Everything reminded him of Linda, starting with the hollow he felt in his soul ever since he had left her standing in the middle of a dark driveway. Did she miss him, just a little? Did she really think he’d cheated on her with Danielle? He recalled how he’d acted toward Danielle the past night and felt a trace of remorse. Perhaps she hadn’t deserved the rough treatment he’d applied to her, but he had simply lost control, as swiftly as he’d lost the only woman he had ever truly loved.

  In such a short time, that woman had become the center of his universe. He relived each moment spent with her, the instant he’d first seen her, distant and cool. Every small progress and the necessary efforts to remove her shield of indifference. Each time they had made love…

  Had everything been in vain? When he’d ran like a teenager to buy the ring, he was so sure Linda loved him, that she would say I do, that she wanted to become his wife. Yet now he wasn’t sure of anything. He was only conscious of an acute pain, a feeling of uselessness and vain indifference, which had descended over him.

  He slowly raised his head, looking around, aware stronger than ever of all the pressure and responsibility weighing on him. He had spent all morning with the clinic’s manager, as well as a couple of his most trustworthy colleagues, presenting them Jean-Paul’s story and putting together a plan of action.

  Suddenly he was seized by an impulse to get away from all this, to walk away, maybe to run away, even if that made him a coward in his opinion. But it was a choice between taking a break far from everything and losing his physical or mental health – entirely or partially, he didn’t know and didn’t want to find out.

  He stood abruptly. Without a backward glance, he got out, slamming the door behind him.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Linda took another sip from the whisky glass on the counter, staring alongside Pirata at the diamond rising from the tiny velvet box placed right in front of her. After another swallow, she grimaced in disgust. She didn’t like alcohol and had never gotten drunk in her life, but now she was doing her best. She didn’t manage to pass the first glass. However, it was only six o’clock in the evening. She had all the time in the world.

  She took a deep breath and grabbed the glass firmly, trying to suppress another involuntary grimace, when the shrill of her new phone broke the silence. She looked at the display and winced. It was Giovanni.

  No matter how much she adored her brothe
r, this was probably the only time in her life when she didn’t want to speak to him, or anybody else, for that matter. Knowing he’d worry if she didn’t answer, she sighed and put the phone to her ear.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, sis, how are you?” he asked cheerfully. “I tried to call you last night, but couldn’t. I was beginning to worry.”

  “Uh, my old phone broke. Fortunately, I managed to save my card and kept my phone number. How are you, fratello mio?” she asked, trying to conjure or at least fake a good disposition.

  Giovanni wasn’t easy to fool though. He knew his sister too well. Even with a few thousand miles between them, he immediately felt something was wrong.

  “What happened?” he asked her, this time in a dead serious tone.

  After a few moments of silence, Linda lowered her head on the counter, whispering:

  “Oh, my darling brother, I’d give anything to have you here with me, to hold me…”

  “Talk to your brother, baby, tell me what’s wrong,” he pleaded, attempting in vain to transmit her all the spiritual warmth which could be emanated only by his voice in the receiver.

  She took another swallow of whisky, then said, with a deep sigh:

  “I’m a wreck, darling. I had a wonderful man, but I’ve ruined everything. Now I doubt he even wants to know I exist. And he’s damned right, I have extremely bad luck in every relationship. I’ve come to think love is just not for me. Maybe I’m too much of an idiot to deserve something so beautiful.”

  Giovanni remained quiet while his sister told him about Gerard, about their relationship and the way it had ended. After she fell silent, he said:

  “You’re right in one regard, sis. It pains me to say it, but you’re a little idiot.”

  Although she had made that statement earlier, Linda protested defensively.

  “You would have reacted just the same if you’d seen what I’d seen and you know it, Giovanni. If you’d see your girl mouth to mouth with another man, the first thing you’d do wouldn’t be to stop and ask yourself if there’s a logical explanation.”