The man covered his face with his hands and started crying again. Stunned, Rose tried to touch his shoulder shuddering from his sobs, but he shook her hand off and rubbed his reddened eyes with his sleeve.
Chapter 19
“It was supposed to be me in his place,” Martin continued while catching his breath. “On that day, she came to me as usual, only this time, she looked somehow different. Perhaps this was part of my sick imagination but it seemed to me that she was wearing an old dress, the very same that was once my favourite, a very long time ago... It was a light cream colour, almost white and its flying chiffon folds had once troubled me more than anything in the world.
I almost didn’t move. For many years, I sat motionless, even when I was awake and, detached, stared at the solitude around me. I only stealthily glanced at her and, by the expression on her face, I understood that it was the last time she would ever come. No, there was no cruelty or hatred on her face like before. Tears streamed from her honey brown eyes and her small elegant hands slid across the delicate blush of her cheeks. I had never seen her like that all the while I was imprisoned there. Margaret sat on her knees on the concrete floor and put her purse next to her. I had never seen her arrive with anything else but the food packages. She was clearly nervous and the lump, blocking her thoughts, the sound of which rushed to escape her, melted very slowly. Making an enormous effort, she began to talk,
‘Martin, I loved you very much. I loved you as much as barren dry land loves the most welcomed rain after a long draught, filling her depths. I loved you as much as the hot May sun loves the cold asphalt, cracked from the heavy traffic. I loved you as a mother loves her son, as a daughter loves her father. I loved you like a friend, like a brother, like a lover, like a husband, like the man of my life. Like my man.’
She made an emphasis on that phrase and lowered her eyes. Two cold black waterfalls spilled their waters inside her honey-coloured glowing eyes and vanished instantly. She began to breathe faster and, making another effort, continued with the same gentleness with which she had started. The warmth of her voice illuminated everything around me and, though I hated Margaret, to some degree I was grateful to her at that moment, for many years had passed since I heard a human voice.
‘I loved you more than sand coastal waves love breaking against the heavy banks of sea waters, as the lightness of the seagull’s wings loves the caressing lips of the wind, as a willow, swinging on the waves of whirlwind loves it for breaking its solitude. I loved you as much and as fervently passionate as I fatally needed you. I was so afraid of losing you, as a child is afraid of losing their parents, as the sun is afraid of losing rays, as the night is afraid of losing its stars and as love is afraid of losing its desire. I loved you. I loved you so much. I loved you. I loved...’ She was saying as she reached into her purse, pulling a gun out of it.
On that day, she came to kill me. I looked at her without any expression on my face but I remember that I was happy, deep within my soul. Let everything end, I had already paid enough for the things I can’t even remember anymore. Crying, she put her trembling hands forward, clutching the cold iron between her fingers and the barrel of the gun, pointed at me, faltered. I remember looking her straight in the eye and feeling nothing, neither fear nor pain nor resentment. I remember thinking it was strange that nothing whirled through my head, seconds before death. No pictures of life, no good moments rushed through my head, none of the things they usually show on TV. Finally, at the end of my rotten, worthless fate I had figured it out! Nothing goes through your head before death!
Suddenly, I heard someone lifting the heavy bunker door and two eyes appeared in the crack. A confused male voice said in a velvety heavy bass, ‘What the hell?!’ At the time, I had no idea it was Margaret’s husband. I knew nothing of her life or about anything at all. The figure that appeared at the trapdoor was just like the man in the paper, like two peas in a pod. Margaret didn’t turn around as she was still kneeling and holding the gun to my head. Suddenly, she changed and her face darkened. There was no trace of tears left and her eyes filled with thick black lustre.
‘Margaret!’ The unaware man shouted irritably and maliciously from above. Without dropping the gun, she rose up from her knees, turned to him and shot him confidently, without a second thought.”
“Oh my God, Martin! Why did you forbid me to go to the police?!” The worried woman stood from the couch and threw her hands up.
“Because I will take my vengeance alone!” The agitated man arose as well, taking a menacing appearance. “She does not deserve to spend her life in prison, surrounded by people and light! I will crush her as she broke me! I am not too weak... I am not too weak to...” He broke off and, staggering, fell on the couch.
“This is out of the question! I am a high-ranking person. This will not ruin my career just like that! I cannot allow you to lynch her despite the fact that I would kill that vixen with my bare hands! But that’s not right, son, we have to go to the police!”
“Oh, our desires! How much we sacrifice for them, how many risks we take! Isn’t that right, Monsieur Schwartz? A person, who has lost all they had, would stop at nothing in order to be given another chance.”
On that day, Martin Krisi hazarded the main desire of his life, to have his revenge, by telling this story to Rose. However, though he was still weak and, to some degree had lost his mind, one thing truly persisted in his memory. Rose was too sensitive and compassionate to put aside the pleas of her son who looked at her with glowing eyes. He said,
“Rose, I know how much you have done for me! Your heart has brought you here and you saved me! I owe you my life! But, I beg of you, allow me to take pleasure in one thing before we go to the police and tell them everything. Two and a half weeks ago, I saw her being taken out of court and put into a car that transported prisoners. I heard you talk on the phone about being a part of the jury at the trial on her case. If Margaret is absolved today, I want to see her go back to that place and find out that I am not there! I want to see her hair stand on end from the horror and surprise, which will chain her body! I want to take pleasure in her fear and her defeat! And there is nothing more ravishing than the thought that she will find out about that by herself! I beg of you, mother, give me this day, and tomorrow we will go to the police and tell them everything. I promise!”
It seemed that Rose’s heart had diminished, clinging to the walls of her warm soul. She knew that what she was doing was wrong but she could never say no to her children. For her, he was a son who went astray and she loved him even more because of that. “In the end,” she reasoned with herself, “she will most likely be found guilty today and immediately after the trial I will make that boy go to the police. And if she is released, I will do the same thing, only... I will give the boy a few last hours of ecstasy. I will allow her to go back home but I will personally follow her.”
“It was her eyes, Monsieur Schwartz, from the very beginning.” Pierre broke off, contemplating running and bustling clouds on the blue and black English sky. “We saw them at the last hearing on Margaret’s case and her spying look following my former boss to the garage next to her house.”
The woman’s plans failed to come true. Her miraculously saved stepson started plotting against Margaret and it seemed that this time, the devil himself would not be able to stop him.
While Rose was getting dressed for court, he sat on a chair next to the window and started to drill the outside world with his absentminded eyes. The woman approached him, kissed him on the forehead and asked him to leave all concerns to her. Martin gratefully looked up at her and agreed. To be sure, she locked the suite. As soon as Rose went to court, he jumped from his seat and tried to open the door, forcibly pulling on the handle a few times and starting to get nervous. Having firmly decided that he would not be any woman’s prisoner, locked in a bunker or elegant luxury suite, Martin started to act.
There was a thick phonebook in the cabinet under the phone. At noon, someone fr
om Rose Krisi’s room called the reception desk and reported a fire on the floor. Hurriedly, the man put the book next to the front door and set its rough pages on fire, having thrown tightly rolled pieces of toilet paper on top of it. The smoke rose, igniting a classy carpet, the edge of which, completing the line of the room, barely touched the hallway, separating the room from the front door with the burning book a few centimetres away. The carpet, incidentally, was made by Margaret’s company on a special order from the property owner, for only high-ranking people stayed in the rooms of this level. Another British sur, don’t you think, Monsieur Schwartz?
Having arrived upstairs, Mark, the clerk who helped to smuggle the man into the hotel in secret two and a half weeks ago, was now looking at him through the smoke, confused and motionless. Only two black eyes flashed in front of him with their sparks, through the smoke dissolving in the air, taking the silhouette of the escaped prisoner along with it.
Chapter 20
“Are you trying to say that this dark-skinned young boy was imprisoned for eight years? Mr. Schwartz gasped, slightly tipsy from the fifth pint of dark ale.
“Exactly, Monsieur. Would you care for a walk to a picturesque place overlooking the wonderful waters of our river? It is close to central park. It is a twenty-minute walk from here.”
“Of course, Pierre. I must confess, I am quite drunk and your story is the only thing keeping me up. But, I beg of you, continue.”
It was Margaret’s favourite place. Occasionally after work, she would ask me to drive her there. We would stop. She would exit the car and, wrapping herself in a red woollen coat that was fighting with the gusts of the north wind, walk to the narrow bridge that hung as an iron arc over the streams of grey waters. The woman would stand there for a long time, leaning on the railing, and could watch the speeding current for several hours.
On that fateful last day after the trial, she asked me to bring her there once more. As if anticipating the impending doom, I dared to approach her for the first time. Without even turning, as if she knew my steps, Margaret suddenly said,
“Are you afraid of anything, Pierre?”
I stopped from surprise and, having overpowered my body that refused to move, I said after some time,
“Yes, madam. I am afraid that one day I won’t be able to see the beauty that surrounds me.”
I said that without any hints, whatsoever. I meant the world around us, the light of the rising sun, a May morning, the pink-honey dawn. But I noticed a barely discernible smile on her face. Apparently, she took it as a compliment. Frankly, I would not dare to challenge her thoughts. Suddenly, she turned and, looking at me intently and strangely, said,
“And fears? Do you have any fears? What do you dread?”
The atmosphere was favourable to such a dialogue, though I never expected to hear such a thing. The twilight was already slowly consuming the park and the lanterns, turning on one by one, lit with their dimness the lonely benches near the trees. The face of the moon, peeking through the smoky scattered clouds, illuminated the face of the moon that stood right next to me, making her look even more enigmatic and mysterious. Having thought for a moment, I replied,
“Madam, there is something I dread. I am very afraid of flying. I am even afraid of looking at airplanes. I arrived here from France on a steamboat, which might have been even more dangerous. But as soon as I board a plane, I start to feel violently nauseous and I... What? You are laughing at me?”
Margaret smiled, as if she had just heard a story from a child who is afraid of a mythical monster in the closet.
“Okay and what are you afraid of?” I asked, slightly offended and blushing.
She turned around again, leaning on the iron railing of the bridge with her elbows, and glanced from the languishing moon on the sky to the beckoning darkness of the water. She looked somewhere at a distance, deep in thought. She was thinking for a while, as if in doubt, and asked me to return to the car. At the exact same spot where you have been sitting lately, Monsieur Schwartz, Margaret had told me something I have never told anyone. It was her only revelation, which would most likely bring a fortune to someone who would dare to speak of it.
In the 1960s, Margaret’s father was working as the sheriff of the local police department. Their town was small, several houses and a couple of streets, so to say. All the townsfolk respected and admired her father. He had a brilliant reputation and indisputable authority, an excellent service record, credentials and he even had a medal of valour. He was a role model for everyone at work and generally for everyone around him, a “godfather” of sorts. Everyone could always ask him for help. Everyone, except his daughter. The thing was, he was cruel and resolute with his family. You know, Monsieur Schwartz, it often happens that people are friendly and kind, maybe even too much, towards strangers in order not to arouse suspicion because when they come home, they turn into a real devil, a tyrant and a despot. There are thousands of such examples throughout history and Margaret’s father fit their description perfectly.
The sheriff always wanted a son, to raise him in the best traditions of men and he was very upset when a daughter was born. Would it seem that there was something special here? He and his wife could try and have another baby. But years went by and his wife, daughter of the late Lucas Agostini, the Sicilian, could not get pregnant. Desperate, Margaret’s father, whose dreams were shattered, started hating his daughter so much that he ceased noticing her mere existence. During those inopportune moments, when little Margaret stumbled under his feet, asking him to play with her, he would unscrupulously push the child away and tried to do anything to keep her from his sight.
When Margaret’s mother was away from home and he had to take care of the girl, he would grab the screaming child’s arms and forcefully drag her into a dark cupboard where he would chain her to the panel and lock her inside. She was barely six at the time. Fortunately for Margaret, it did not last long. After some time, while on duty, he caught a stray bullet and bleeding, was taken to a local hospital where he died in the intensive care unit on the operating table; they were barely able to shift him from the stretcher.
The torment of the girl ended and the mother, who the deceased would periodically beat senseless in fits of rage, sighed with relief and thanked the Lord. Then she crossed herself, asking for His forgiveness.
“Since then, I have been afraid of dark corners and rooms. Until one day, when I came to your town, I overcame my fears and I went down... I mean, I entered one of them...” She faltered and continued, slightly coughing and looking away. “What I wanted to say, Pierre, that each one of us has something to fear and something to lose in life. We can’t let fears stop us. Board a plane! Go parachuting! Climb the tallest building in the town and look down! Open yourself to the fear! Trust me, the feeling of overcoming your fears will raise you to the sky!” Her intonation increased frantically, lifting her shoulders and arms along with it. The woman’s entire body trembled and her eyes filled with black triumphant lustre covering the honey bays, which melted away in the light of the moon.
In Margaret’s diaries, from those rare editions that sold out completely in half an hour, there was a brief dry description of how Martin Krisi fell into the woman’s trap. The thing was, having read all forty Sicilian’s diaries from cover to cover, Margaret left her late grandfather’s bunker and went straight to Krisi. Having ambushed him in the dorm, she used all her feminine charms and weakness in order to lure the future prisoner to her house. She wrote that she twisted him around her finger, the man who was used to being triumphant in this role. She cried and begged him to forgive her. She was “incredibly sorry for everything that had happened” and she “didn’t want to hurt him.” She “accidentally met” Jonathan, Martin’s friend who intervened and fought for her. Generally, by short or long persuasion, Krisi naively bought Margaret’s tearful apology. Apparently, his passion for the woman trembling with excitement was still warm and he was certainly flattered by such beautiful girl’s attempts
to get back together with him. On that night, he fell asleep in her bed, embracing his deceitful temptress and he woke up in the dark concrete room with chains all around him.
After “The Anniversary of Three Deaths,” a saying was born in town: “If you want to live, don’t make Margaret angry.”
The story is disturbing and truly terrifying. Imagine that your life completely depends on a person who holds the key to your freedom in their hands! I would prefer quick death to its slow semblance! And what about you, Monsieur Schwartz? “Yes, yes, of course, Pierre,” the foreigner muttered perplexedly and sadly. He crossed his arms on his chest, banishing the chills. He anxiously looked into the distant fleeting waters of the cold black river and his eyes filled with sadness, perhaps triggered by five pints of dark ale and perhaps by the tragic story. It was dawning.
“Margaret took everything into consideration,” Pierre continued, “except for one thing. On that night, fatal for Martin Krisi, she became pregnant.”
Chapter 21
After the trial, on the doorstep of Ellen Strasberg, Margaret’s single mother, “a breathless and very agitated man” appeared, when night fell on the town, around eight o’clock. At least that was how an elderly woman described him when she was questioned. She woke up in the town hospital a day later.
There was nothing in his hands except for the photograph of the girl from the newspaper and a torn page from the burnt phone book. There was Ellen Strasberg’s address and the phone number on that piece of paper. As it turned out later, the man appeared “out of the blue.” Either he did not know how strong he was or, rather, he knew it all too well, for he pushed aside the old woman who was standing in his way. Ellen was unable to keep her balance and, falling, hit her head on a small cupboard in the hallway. The woman fainted while the man forcibly carried out the resisting girl. “His eyes were like the devil’s eyes!” Ellen said later. “His hands were shaking and you could see on his face that no earthly force would be able to stop him!”
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