Liberate Yourself (The Desires Unlocked Trilogy Part One)

by Evie Blake

  ‘Where were you?’ she hisses. ‘You left me sitting in the Hotel Danieli for over two hours.’

  He sits down on the bed next to her, pushes the hair off her forehead and flattens it down again gently.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he says. ‘There was nothing I could do about it. That detective was hanging around and I didn’t want to run into him.’

  She pushes herself up against the headboard of the bed, taking herself away from his touch, and gives him a hard stare.

  ‘Theo, you have to tell me what the hell is going on right now. There was this old lady and I gave her the Metsu painting . . . and then Garelli came in and told me that it’s Nazi plunder . . . and then . . .’ She stutters, the image of her dream returning, the blond stranger trying to drown her. ‘There’s this horrible man who keeps following me, and I think he wants to hurt me . . .’

  To her surprise, a grin spreads across Theo’s face.

  ‘You mean Glen? I would hardly call him a threat!’ he guffaws.

  Valentina is incensed.

  ‘I don’t know what his name is, but he’s a nasty piece of work. He was on the train after you got off. He tried to push me off it.’

  Theo frowns, the smile wiped off his face.

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, I don’t like Glen, and I don’t approve of some of his methods, but I don’t actually think he is a killer, Valentina.’

  She crosses her arms.

  ‘Well I think he tried to push me off,’ she says. Yet when she really thinks about it, maybe he was actually trying to pull her into the train. She was so frightened, she can’t remember clearly now.

  ‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘he followed me home from the Danieli, and he was outside the window, staring up at me.’

  ‘I know, he’s still there,’ Theo says evenly.

  ‘What!’ She jumps out of bed and storms across the room, pulling back the curtain to take a look.

  ‘Er, Valentina, maybe you want to put something on. Glen might get the wrong idea.’

  She throws the curtain back down, and picks up her greatgrandmother’s silk evening gown, slipping it on again.

  ‘That’s a beautiful dress,’ Theo remarks.

  She ignores him, more concerned with her stalker. She goes back to the curtain, pulls it ajar slightly, and there is the blond man, Glen, still waiting for her. She drops the curtain and turns around.

  ‘What’s he doing there, Theo?’ she asks. ‘Why is he following me?’

  Theo pats the bed.

  ‘Come here,’ he says, beseeching her with his wide blue eyes. She can’t help but feel drawn to him, despite her anger.

  She sits back down on the bed, glowering at him.

  ‘I think you owe me an explanation,’ she says.

  ‘Okay, darling, but come right over here, will you?’

  She lets him pull her to him. She slides down him, with her back to his chest, as he puts his arm around her shoulder and picks up her other hand in his.

  ‘Let’s start with Glen, shall we?’ he begins. ‘I expect Garelli filled you in on the background to my work.’

  She snorts with sarcasm. She can’t help it.

  ‘I would hardly call stealing paintings a proper job.’

  He laces his fingers through hers.

  ‘Come now,’ he says. ‘Don’t you know me by now?’

  ‘I know that you steal art that’s Nazi plunder and give it back to the original owners, but I don’t understand why you don’t work alongside the authorities.’

  ‘Because it takes too long,’ Theo says simply, sighing. ‘Look, I’ll explain why I do what I do in a moment. Firstly I want to tell you about Glen.’

  ‘Who is he?’ she asks.

  ‘Does he frighten you?’

  ‘Yes.’ She is done pretending she is tough. Let Theo know how shaken she is by that man’s presence.

  He tucks her in even tighter under his arm.

  ‘I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t think he would try to get at you. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, tell him to lay off or else . . .’

  Can she hear a trace of humour in his voice? It is unaccountable.

  ‘Can’t you tell him to go away now?’ she says crossly. ‘I mean, he is right outside.’

  Theo squeezes her hand in his.

  ‘I can’t do that because of Mrs Kinder. I have to give her a chance to leave Venice without Glen confronting her. It’s better he is here, outside our hotel window, rather than bothering her.’

  She twists around and looks at him questioningly.

  ‘Glen does much the same as I do,’ Theo explains. ‘He hunts down paintings lost or stolen during the Second World War, and returns them to their owners. However, unlike me, Glen demands a big fat fee for his endeavours. And the original owners of these paintings are usually so frail and old by now that he is able to bully them into giving him way too much money.’

  So that was why Mrs Kinder was so frightened.

  ‘Originally Gertrude Kinder hired Glen to find her painting. She agreed to give him one million dollars for the job.’

  Valentina gasps in shock. No wonder the man is so persistent.

  ‘It just so happened that the Metsu was one of my paintings. So I took it first,’ he says simply.

  ‘But Theo,’ she exclaims, ‘you are breaking the law. You can’t just break into someone’s house and steal something, even if it belonged to someone else before.’

  ‘I always explain,’ he says, lifting their knotted hands and raising them to his lips, so that he kisses the back of her hand. ‘Afterwards, of course. I made the mistake of asking nicely once, and when I returned to collect it, the painting had magically been moved to another location. So I realised that stealth was the only way.’

  ‘But why? I just don’t understand why you would put yourself in such danger, and for what? If you are returning all these paintings to the original owners and not getting a cent for it, well, why do you do it?’

  He drops their hands and extricates his fingers from hers, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist as if he is afraid she might run away.

  ‘It’s for my grandfather.’

  She twists around again, trying to catch his eye.

  ‘Your grandfather? I didn’t even know you had a grandfather!’

  He strokes her hair, then leans down and kisses her forehead, looking at her sadly.

  ‘Well, you have never been that interested in my family, but if you had been, you would remember that my grandparents live in Amsterdam still. They have lived there all their lives.’

  ‘Are they Jewish?’ Valentina whispers, suddenly ashamed that she doesn’t know even this about Theo’s family.

  ‘No, they’re not Jewish,’ Theo says stoically, pausing. ‘My grandfather worked for one of the most famous art dealers in Europe in the thirties. He happened to be Jewish. His name was Albert Goldstein and he had an impressive collection of Dutch Masters and rococo art, as well as more modern works. When the war began, before Holland was actually invaded by the Nazis, several Jewish families decided to leave, and they deposited their art with Mr Goldstein, in the belief that they would be able to return to collect it one day. But of course the Germans invaded and poor Mr Goldstein had to flee. He entrusted this collection to my grandfather. It was his job to protect all this art.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  Theo sighs, and she can feel the heaviness of his heart as he tells her the secrets of his family.

  ‘My grandfather was persuaded by the Hermann Göring Division to sell the entire collection to him for a ridiculously small amount of money, a fraction of what it was worth. My grandfather never forgave himself. He felt he had betrayed Mr Goldstein and his Jewish friends.’

  ‘I am sure he had no choice, Theo,’ Valentina says, touching his arm gently. Theo gazes down at her. In his eyes she can see what kind of a man he is, one who would risk his freedom for the honour of his kin.

  ‘Of course he had no choice,’ he says, his voice heavy. ‘He knew
what would happen to his family if he refused to sell, and yet he still considered that he had let his employer down. He has spent most of his life trying to track down this art and return it to its rightful owners. My father used to help him, but now he’s too old, so I’ve sort of taken over. It’s a very difficult business, Valentina. There is no one database of plundered art in the world. It can take a long time to find something.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why you don’t just go to the police with the relevant information so that the pictures can be returned legally.’

  Theo shakes his head.

  ‘My grandfather used to try to do that. But do you know how many years it can take to get things returned? The worst thing is if the picture is in a state collection. You can forget it then, especially if it is in Russia. Breaking into someone’s house is one thing, but an art gallery, no way. Even so, it might take years and years to retrieve artworks from private collections.’ Theo pulls her closer to him. ‘It was destroying my grandfather to fight legal battle after legal battle, and finally win, only to find that the original owner of the picture had died waiting. And now, you see, my grandfather is dying too . . .’ Theo pauses, his voice almost a whisper now.

  ‘You never told me.’ She twists round to look up at him again.

  He looks at her, and his gaze is so piercing she has to turn away. He doesn’t need to say anything; she knows what he is thinking. He never told her because he knew she wouldn’t want to know.

  ‘I wanted to finish his life’s work, so to speak,’ he starts to say. ‘There are only a few paintings left to return . . . I felt compelled to do it.’ He pauses, squeezing her hand again. ‘I’m sorry I never told you before, Valentina. I wanted to confide in you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you? You know I can keep a secret,’ she says passionately.

  ‘Because I needed to know how you feel about me, so I could trust you . . . and you kept telling me how our relationship is casual. Besides, I thought you might run for the hills if you really knew what I did for a living.’

  Valentina puts her hands over his and holds them tight.

  ‘Theo Steen, lost art investigator. Sounds good,’ she declares, trying to lighten the mood.

  ‘So you’re not shocked?’

  ‘Of course I’m shocked.’ She slaps his arm gently. ‘You’re not the man I thought you were.’

  ‘Is that a good or a bad thing?’

  She looks up at him again, cocks her head on one side and smiles her crooked smile.

  ‘I’m not sure yet,’ she says, poking her finger at his face. ‘In any case, I think I’ve heard enough for now,’ she says, snuggling into him. ‘The time for words is over.’

  She lifts his arms and turns around on her knees. She leans down and kisses him on the lips, lingering, inhaling his familiar scent. It is good to be in his arms again.

  ‘Valentina?’ Theo says softly. ‘Do you mind if we just go to sleep?’

  ‘Really?’ She looks up at him in surprise.

  ‘I’m so tired; actually, I’m exhausted. I just want to hold you in my arms and fall asleep.’

  ‘Sure, honey.’ The endearment slips out, and Theo raises his eyebrow, a slow smile spreading across his face.

  ‘Honey?’

  She blushes furiously.

  ‘Slip of the tongue.’

  ‘If you say so, honey,’ he drawls, but he looks pleased.

  She takes off her dress and slips under the covers. Theo undresses, switches off the light, and gets in next to her. They lie side by side, naked, neither of them speaking for a moment. She absorbs everything Theo has told her. It seems so fantastical, and yet at the same time quite ordinary as well. He is just trying to help some old people get their stuff back. He is trying to help his grandfather make his peace before he dies.

  ‘Come here,’ he whispers into the darkness. She slides over in the bed and lets him hold her in his arms. They lie on their sides, and he is spooning her. She can feel his heartbeat on her back, his breath upon her neck. Theo is here at last with her. Tomorrow they will talk about them. She will find out why he gave her the erotic pictures, what he was doing at the club with Leonardo, and why he was in the Dark Room. She thinks she knows why, but she needs to hear him say it for sure. Yet for now she ceases to worry. She lets herself succumb to the sanctity of falling asleep within her lover’s arms. And finally she exits the Dark Room of her solitude, for she believes at last she has come to understand what love is.

  Belle

  SHE CALLS THE BABY MAEVE MARIA MAGDA, TO BE KNOWN as Maria. Maeve after the Irish queen, the namesake of Santos’s boat; Maria after Pina’s late mother; and Magda after her own mother, forgiven now she is dead.

  Magda Dudek dies exactly one month before the baby is born, to the day. The first Belle knows of it is a letter forwarded to her apartment from the new owners of her old home. It is on the official headed paper of the Poveglia Sanatorium, regreting to inform her that Mrs Magda Dudek died whilst in surgery from a heart attack. They’re vague about what the surgery was for, but Belle suspects the doctor was doing some kind of horrific lobotomy in an effort to restore her mother’s sanity. She feels a moment of remorse, pushing her hands on her dome of a belly, sensing the life within her.

  After Signor Brzezinski died, should she have gone and rescued her mother? It was her intention. And yet the weeks passed and she was preoccupied with survival, and with her pregnancy. Maybe her mother didn’t deserve to be rescued. She had betrayed her; let her be married to that brute. She must have known what kind of man Signor Brzezinski was. Magda Dudek failed to protect her own child; Belle swears she will never put herself before Maria in the same way. And yet despite knowing all of this, she cannot help but mourn her mother, for she loved her, of course.

  As Belle is in the throes of childbirth, she hears her mother’s voice one last time.

  Ludwika, Ludwika, where is my little girl?

  And she knows in a moment of lucidity that her mother regretted her actions, so much so that maybe that was what drove her mad in the end. As she pushes her daughter out into the world, she asks her mother to protect the baby. It will make up for everything. And as the years pass, Belle has a feeling that her mother is indeed Maria’s guardian angel, for her daughter grows up to be blessed with the same pretty features as Magda Dudek that drove her husband, and Signor Brzezinski, so wild. In fact she is even more striking, for she has inherited her father’s exotic blue eyes as well.

  The years spin by, and still Belle doesn’t give up hope that Santos will return one day. He promised her. She imagines him returning, and his joy when he discovers he has a child. And such a sweet, easy little girl, a lover of the sea and a dancer, just like her father. By the time Maria is four, she is so well behaved that she accompanies her mother and Auntie Pina on their photograph-taking excursions, tripping along behind them like a little fairy in a tiny ballerina dress, or a miniature clown in a harlequin costume with a jester’s mask. She has no father with her, but that doesn’t matter, for the whole of Venice is Maria’s family. She knows every gondolier, every artisan and stallholder. They all keep a watchful eye on the little girl with the beautiful eyes. Everyone knows who her real father is, for Santos Devine is a legend in Venice. And just like Belle, the city waits for him to return.

  Yet he never comes. The years turn and turn as Belle holds on. Despite the comfort Pina offers her, for her friend is deeply in love with her, Belle will not take it, not even a kiss. It is not fair to Pina to lead her on, for she is saving herself for Santos. Often at night she pushes his gold earring on to each finger one by one, trying to warm the cold metal with her hope, yet still it feels like a dead man’s ring. She strives to keep her faith in him, as the cracks in her heart multiply.

  It is three days before Maria’s eighth birthday when Belle’s long vigil finally comes to an end. She is smothered with a heavy cold, and Pina insists she stay in bed while she and Maria go out and ply their trade. Her friend and daughter clatter out o
f the apartment, Pina dressed in Belle’s sailor boy outfit, and an adaptation of the black ballerina’s dress for Maria’s tiny frame.

  Belle is listless. She cannot rest, and yet she is too ill to get out of bed. As she tosses and turns, she hears birdsong coming from the window. She recognises the flute notes instantly. She sits up in bed and there is her little blackbird. She has not seen him since the day Lara brought him to her all those years ago. She listens to his song, and it is as if she can hear her lover’s words beneath it.

  Here I am. Here I am.

  The blackbird flies away into the ethereal mists of Venice, and in his place stands Santos Devine. She cries out to him, in joy, in fear. He looks exactly how he did when she last saw him. His prowess, his power, his passion all perfectly combined. He walks towards her, across the shadowy room.

  ‘Santos? Is that really you?’

  Her lover doesn’t speak, but still he comes towards her. She sits up in bed and holds out her arms to him. They embrace, her heart raw with the pain of the missing years.

  ‘Santos,’ she whispers, as she inhales his scent. She could never forget his sweet perfume. ‘Where have you been?’

  Santos doesn’t reply. Instead he lifts her face to his and kisses her. She feels his love within their kiss, the burning power of it.

  ‘I have been waiting for you, my love,’ she whispers. ‘I knew you would return to me.’

  Still he doesn’t speak, and yet the expression in his eyes tells her all she needs to know. He loves her.

  Santos kisses each part of her, waking up her body, so long asleep, so long untouched. She curls around him, pressing into him, feeling their limbs entwine so that they become one beautiful, sublime pulsing heart. He pushes inside her, and she opens her mouth and releases all the anguish of her long wait for this moment. Their eyes lock as they rock together on the bed. She looks love full in the face, commits to memory every curl of his hair, every freckle upon his skin, each crease around his eyes, that divine cleft in his chin. This is the mountain she has had to climb, yet she never gave up, and now she has her reward. In her head she composes a poem, just like Veronica Franco would.