Broken Serenade

BROKEN SERENADE

A NOVEL BY

DORINA NEAGU STANCIU

                    To you, Ion, again…

                     
I love you more than ever…

All names, characters, and actions included in the present book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real people, organizations, and events is purely unintentional.

Dorion E-Publishing

Copyright © 2012
by author

All rights reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced, transmitted, illegally downloaded and stored, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

PROLOGUE

       London, 1989 

   
 
E
ach and every one of his patients had something different, malignantly interesting, something that incited his curiosity and determined him to wait for the next appointment almost anxiously. What made them extremely fascinating for his interest of a purely medical nature, it was the fact that none of them was entirely out of touch with reality. They were human beings only partially lost into inexistent territories artificially created by their captivatingly alienated minds. And psychologist Doctor Andrew Evans was struggling to show them the way back to the normal world - a world that appeared mentally healthy, considering the rules by itself established. He was not married and had no other passion or hobby. He did his job with patience and total dedication, always stretching his limits to the maximum, in a desperate desire to escape his own inner monsters. Those little devils inside his head were ravishing his being every once in a while with unhealthy and scandalous cravings.  

   
Still, the most important thing for Doctor Andrew Evans was the fact that he felt in control in the presence of each of his patients.

  
However, this teenage girl made him increasingly uneasy. She was naturally blonde, with ash highlights in her hair obediently combed in a ponytail. She seemed like taken out of a Christian icon.
Most certainly, she has blue eyes like the clear sky of a beautiful summer day
, the doctor guessed, in a poetic mood,
and probably she is still a virgin.

  
He opened the file of his future patient and realized in only a few seconds that appearances can be awfully deceiving sometimes, like in this particular case. He read fast, between the lines, the story of this girl, rejoicing for every wrong step she had taken until that moment.
Down, down in the human mud,
Mr. Evans thought.
The lower you are now, the more you’ll have to climb with my help. Your recovery will be spectacular,
he reflected in an instant of sudden and unexpected confidence in his own practice.  

   
Miss Lauren had become a mother at the young age of sixteen. With the assistance of an international agency, she had given up her child for adoption. Her baby girl had brought joy and happiness to a wealthy family in California.

    An entire year
, Miss Lauren had managed to keep herself away from serious troubles. It had been a period almost sterile from the criminal point of view - only one act of petty theft from a cosmetics boutique, and an attempt to pose as an adult in an alcoholic beverages store. Just until a few months ago, when
life
had sent her a message, as concrete as it had been horrifying: 
You can’t play with fire and not get burned.
Maybe fortune would smile upon you once, or twice, but not every time you take a wrong step.

  
One late night, she was returning home from a party she had attended without the consent and awareness of her parents. She had taken three girlfriends with her in the car. Eager to add a little bit of excitement into their lives of obedient, bored high school girls, they had unnecessarily entered the freeway. Unfortunately, Miss Lauren had gotten her driver’s license only a month back, and she had drunk a considerable amount of beer at the party. The
wrong way
sign had not rung any bells as she had commenced her wild freeway ride. The accident had been inevitable. Her Toyota SUV had hit the small Ford car frontally. The two men in the Ford and all three friends of her had died instantly. Miss Lauren had been the only one wearing a seatbelt and, thanks to that vital detail, the sole survivor of that grisly accident. However, she had lost her left breast and, along with it, a consistent part of her mental faculties. In the months following the accident, Miss Lauren had already tried to end her life twice. Now, she had been put under suicidal watch. 

    At the moment
of her scheduled medical appointment with Doctor Evans, her musical talent was the only good thing about her. Many connoisseurs in the matter considered her a real piano virtuoso.

   
Brimming with professional anticipation, the psychologist decided it was time to face the little beast and start to tame her.

   
“Miss Johns, would you, please, be so kind as to invite Miss Lauren into my office,” Doctor Evans addressed his assistant.      

  
The girl entered, as formal and haughty as a queen, and she came to a stop in front of his desk.  

   
As it was his custom with all his new patients, he stood up and reached out to shake her hand and introduce himself.

   
“Miss Lauren, I am Doctor Evans…”

   
The young girl looked at him with cold, unblinking green eyes. She was undoubtedly beautiful. She had the glacial, primitive beauty of a rare, lethal reptile.  

   
She did not give the slightest impression that she intended to welcome his gesture. On the contrary.

   
What the hell is on your mind? I can’t wait to discover,
the doctor found himself thinking. 

   
“I am a woman,” she stated proudly. “The code of politeness dictates that you should wait for me to initiate the handshake,” she continued with a smirk. “And then, Doctor Evans,” she said arrogantly, tilting her head to one side and looking down on him with unjustified superiority, “I don’t particularly like being in your office. They forced me to come for an evaluation.”

    “A m
ental evaluation,” the psychologist specified rigidly.

   
“Yes”, she answered with a stern face.

    “Is it the environment of my office, or is it the reason you’re here that you actually dislike, Miss La
uren?”

    “Both,” she answered promptly. “Well…you could add yourself to the list also. Nothing personal, mind you! It is just your profession that I can’t stand. You’re going to be my shrink, Mr. Evans. You’re going to want
to know what’s on my mind. This is something that I don’t only dislike. In fact, I find this situation revolting!”          

   
I should have anticipated her behavior.
Silently, Doctor Evans disapproved with his own technique so far.
Most teenagers are rebels. Why would she be an exception to the rule?

   
He decided to ignore her crude and disturbing sincerity. It was better that way.

   
“Please, do sit down, Miss Lauren,” the doctor invited her in a patronizing tone of voice. 

   
The girl took a seat immediately. In a matter of seconds, her coolness dissolved unexpectedly, and she began to cry.

    “Don’t you understand?
” she lamented. “I don’t want to live. I don’t want to! I can’t!”

  
“Do you feel responsible for the deaths of your friends and of those two men? You have to know that the feeling is normal. Post traumatic stress disorder can lead to suicidal behavior,” the psychologist attempted to explain her psychological condition using academic terms. 

   
Her crying and sobbing fit stopped as suddenly as it had erupted. She broke into a nervous, hysterical laughter.

    Patiently, t
he doctor waited for her to calm down. He handed her a box of Kleenex.

   
“Hey doc, you really amuse me,” the girl replied harshly with unmasked impudence. “They are dead. D, e, a, d,” she spelled the word. “My remorse will not bring them back. I am talking about me… ME! What am I going to do? How could I go through this perfidious life with only one breast? I am mutilated. Forever. I am a monster,” she yelled. “Do you have a pill for that, doc?”   

   
Yes, you are a monster indeed
, Mr. Evans agreed.
An enchanting, ravishing monster,
he reflected and dared to stare once again into those elongated green eyes.

   
Lyrics from Kim Carnes’ song,
Bette Davis Eyes,
came back involuntarily to his mind:
She’s a spy, she’s got Bette Davis eyes…
He wanted to push the song away, but his brain continued to play it on mute stubbornly, obsessively.

   
She is a monster
, the doctor concluded.

  
Out of nowhere, this stringent need rushed into his mind, a strong desire to plant a minuscule seed of kindness in her. With it, a sparkle of hope flickered anemically.
Theoretically, it should work
, Mr. Evans reflected with a certain amount of reluctance. An encouraging thought sprang to his help, fueling that feeble expectation.
Come on, Andrew, you’ve been experimenting this on yourself for such a long time. If it’s working for you, why wouldn’t it work for her?
Come on doc, give it a try!  

   
When he spoke again, his voice sounded professional, detached, but very convincing. Yet, deep in his heart, he inferred that nothing good could come out of this either. Primordially an optimistic person otherwise, Doctor Andrew Evans was amazed by the raw pessimism that engulfed his being, like an acute crisis of an illness considered long ago cured. Morbid thoughts continued to torture his will as he started to talk.  

   
“Miss Lauren, have you ever heard of the Amazons?” he asked slowly, with patience mastered over years of medical practice.

   
The girl did not answer. He had no doubt that she had never heard about the Amazons.
She’s been quite busy lately. Too many parties, drugs, drinks, and men to try,
Mr. Evans thought maliciously.

   
“The history places them in antiquity, a civilization formed exclusively of extremely courageous women-warriors. Some historians believe the Amazons resided on the actual territory of Ukraine.” Still a bit uneasy, the doctor shifted in his seat. He made another futile attempt to engage her in the dialogue.

   
“Have you ever been to Ukraine, Miss Lauren?”

  
The girl shook her head in negation.