Innocent Monsters (19 page)

unsuccessfully

Return. Delete. Return. Delete.

Could she write? Could she write about the scars on his arms, the scars on his legs, scars of the past he didn’t want to talk about, much deeper than what she could see on his skin? No. She couldn’t possibly try. And she only had eleven days before the Jefferson Company demanded their advance back —money she didn’t have and couldn’t get anywhere.

As Roger had reminded her many times over the past few days, the company was ready to drop her and sue her, and a lawsuit from the Jefferson Company would have disastrous consequences on her life, on her reputation. It would destroy her, and did she have the money to fight back in court? Did she have any grounds to fight them? What was her excuse for not respecting the contract going to be?

Your honor, I believe the defendant suffers from a post-family-death illness which impairs her ability to write

Delete.

Your honor, I believe the defendant suffers from a rare form of Mad Coward disease which prevents her from writing.

Mad Coward disease? Could you tell us a little more about it? What are the symptoms?

Well, the patients usually start wallowing in their own pain, in their momentary block like pigs in shit and although they are perfectly able to fight the illness, they choose not to, because they’re cowards.

And do the patients like to wallow in their suffering like pigs?

Yes. I’d say they generally feel more comfortable in their suffering than they do in their happiness.

So we could assert that Miss Lynch could actually write but she doesn’t really want to, is that correct?

Yes, I’d say it is.

Coward Coward Coward

Delete.

Her head was about to explode. No way she could get anything done in this conditions. She needed painkillers. Fast. And something to eat. Jessica moved off the desk and while she was on her way to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, someone knocked at the door. The young man standing behind it was tall and skinny, slightly tanned, holding a large bunch of white lilies in his arms. “Miss Lynch?”

“Yes?”

“These have been sent for you.” He grinned handing her the flowers. He had horrible teeth. “No message, but this comes with them.” He took a flat square packet the size of a CD out of the inside pocket of his denim jacket.

“Thank you. Do I need to sign anything?”

“Oh no. That’s all. It’s ok. You have a nice day now.”

“You too.”

The guy was already on his way to the elevator, his thin legs almost invisible inside the trousers as he walked. Jessica closed the door and sat on the floor against it, the lilies by her side.

Wrapped in deep blue paper she did find a CD, its cover completely white except for an orange circle underneath thin orange letters reading
Preisner’s Music
. She also found a lighter blue piece of folded paper.

Fill up the bathtub.

Light a candle.

This is the sound of my soul.

Can you see me?

The Garden Courts. 94 Sutter Street. 5.00pm.

I’ll wait for you in the dining room.

William

WILLIAM WAS lying flat on the bed, hands cupped behind his head, the curtains drawn, a candle lit. He was listening to Preisner. Was she? Was she listening to the same track? Was she bored, was she crying?

He shut his eyes looking at the black inside his eyelids, listened to every chord, every note, every string played, and looked around the small church, the candles on the altar and the sun rays slanting down in millions of colours through the vitreous mosaic of the window above the cross, everything clear, detailed, like a movie projected on a blank screen, inside his eyelids. He could see the rows of empty benches. He could see his mother, her tears, her trembling lip, the deep wrinkles around her mouth, the effect of years of unhappiness on her face. He could see his aunt, his aging grandmother, the blank in her eyes and behind her eyes; groups of relatives he had never met before, people who had never taken an interest in their lives, who were there out of duty, not anguish. And he could hear the music, the notes that reminded him of that church and that day because Preisner was the composer his mother had chosen for Helena’s funeral.

His father wasn’t part of this memory because he never attended the ceremony. Maybe —hopefully— somewhere, in a hidden place inside himself Richard Blaise had been able to admit that crying on the grave of the daughter he had himself pushed to suicide would have been too much: depravity and perversion were somehow incomprehensible enough without hypocrisy.

Helena couldn’t live because Richard Blaise existed, because he knew too many people willing to pay for his own daughter, too many people who came back for more She could not live because sometimes Richard went to see her himself. Helena hated that more than anything else. She hated him more than any other man who paid to have sex with her.

William could see her face inside his eyelids, he could see her the way she had looked that last night they spent together. He could see the TV at the end of the dinner table, mashed potatoes, peas, chicken, cold tap water inside an old bottle of soda, green plates, yellow plates, blue rimmed plates, all different, none matching another. He could see Richard asking Helena to pass him some mashed potatoes, his fingers touching her wrist as she handed him the bowl, the perverse smirk on his face, the disgust on hers.

That last night, Helena had sneaked in William’s bed the way she always did when she needed him to hold her, to listen to her, but the only words he remembered her speaking before falling asleep were,
I’m tired Billy, I have to go. Go where?
he’d asked with the voice of his mind, too tired to speak the words out loud. He’d found her back in her bed the next morning, her eyes closed, her fingers gripping an empty plastic jar of their mother’s sleeping tablets. How peaceful she looked, how still. Perfect and placid, serene and peaceful. At last.

The voice of a soprano vibrated in his ears, beautiful, sublime...

...And though I have the gift of prophecy

And understand all mysteries

And all knowledge...

And though I could remove mountains,

If I have not love...

I am nothing.  

His sadness, his love, his madness, this notes had become all of this and he had never shared them with anyone else before.

...This is the sound of my soul
...

Was she listening?

Could she see him?

JESSICA ARRIVED at the Garden Court a few minutes after five. She knew he would be waiting and probably watching from somewhere, so she walked slowly across the oak floor of the dining room looking for him, the hem of her long green skirt brushing against her ankles as she moved. Above her, deep red and orange clouds melted with the dark evening sky beyond the glass roof. Three women in black played in a corner in front of a silent audience of round tables and chairs, couples, friends, men in suits lost in their laptops. Violin, flute, bass.

William was sitting at one of the center tables with a cigarette between his fingers, the sleeves of his dark brown shirt unbuttoned, pulled up to his elbows, his chin lifted towards the roof, his long hair falling perfectly around his face. She sat down across him, folding her coat over the chair.

“Is this going to be a really early dinner?”

He smiled, extinguished his cigarette. “I wanted to watch the sunset from down here. Isn’t it spectacular?”

She nodded and he watched her looking up at the glass roof. She was beautiful, her outfit tightly hugging her curves, the diamond pendant he had given her for Christmas sitting perfectly in the little indentation between her collarbones. Her hair was tied high on top of her head leaving her neck naked. It made him want to sink his teeth into it like a vampire, it made him wish he could suck blood out of her veins, suck happiness, bliss, anything she could give him.

“Thank you for coming,” he said.

“Thank you for asking me to come.” She leaned forward to kiss his lips, caressed his cheek with her fingertips. “How are you?”

“Better. Just tired, I guess. I don’t think I’ve done anything else but work for the past two weeks. What about you? What have you been up to?”

Flattened my ass on the chair in front of the computer, stared at my own reflection on the screen, waited for inspiration, felt sorry for myself, you know...
“Not much really. I’ve been trying to work on my new novel, but...” She shrugged.
Coward. Fucking Coward. Can’t you even say it? I can’t write anymore?
She shrugged again, shrugged the thought off her mind. “...I’m still nowhere.”

He smiled again. “You’re here with me.”

He lifted her hand from the table and kissed it. He looked weary and handsome, a sad light in his eyes, far beyond the happy expression on his face. How she had missed him, how she had missed looking at that sadness in him.

“Thank you.” She whispered.

“What for?”

“For everything. For sharing yourself with me... I listened to the CD.”

“Did you?”

Yes. She had listened to it right after putting the lilies in a vase on the kitchen table. She had filled the bathtub, lit a candle, watched its flame trembling in the mirror. She’d laid in the water, closed her eyes and let the music pervade her.

Zbigniew Preisner
... It was so sensual and yet so dramatic, so moving she had found herself crying, sobbing without a real reason. It was just sadness, his sadness. It had filled her. She had spent more than an hour in the bath completely motionless, her cheeks wet with tears, until the music had stopped and longer, until the water was merely lukewarm and her fingers had turned wrinkly and soft, until she could no longer hear the music playing over and over in her head.

“I did, yes. It’s beautiful. I never heard of Preisner before.”

“Not many people have. He’s a polish composer. Used to be my mother’s favourite.”

“Was she Polish? Or... Is she?” She realised she had no idea whether his parents were alive or dead.

“No, she wasn’t. She just liked watching foreign movies. I suppose that’s how she discovered him.” He sighed still holding her hand close to his lips. “She liked foreign cultures. I always thought she would have done something great with her life if she never met my father. She had a natural elegance that made her stand out. She looked as if she had a purpose... Once.”

“Is she dead?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I haven’t had any contact with her for a very long time.”

The three women in black still played in the corner of the room when a waiter with dark bushy eyebrows approached their table.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” He asked them.

“Can he get us anything to drink, madam?”

“I’d love a drink, a martini?” Jessica offered.

“Two, two martini. Thank you.”

The waiter left and came back again with two glasses and a bowl of olives just as William was lighting another cigarette.

“Jessica, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Right. What is it?”

“How did the music make you feel?”

She didn’t need to think about it. “Sad. Just sad. I thought you must feel the same when you listen to it.”

“I do, I feel sad whenever I listen to it and yet... I can’t stop listening to it. I don’t know if I can explain this but... I told myself I would try to.” William looked down at the table, took his time. “It’s as if I’ve created this place inside myself over the years, this place I keep going back to and going back to and going back to, and it doesn’t really matter anymore how sad it is, how miserable it makes me feel because it’s become the only place I feel comfortable in. And the way I feel when I go to that place it’s the only way I seem able to feel. I know it doesn’t make any sense...” He took a long drag on his cigarette. Jessica watched the smoke came out of his lips, watched his mouth moving again, still trying to understand. “I gave you the CD because I want you to understand. I want you to understand me. I want you to see me.”

“I can see you.”

But could she? Or was the fact that she couldn’t see him very clearly the reason why she was so attracted to him? Wasn’t his madness, his fragility the only reason why she wanted to be near him?

“I have created that place listening to that music. I’m sad and miserable and I am lonely and I’m tired of being alone. I want to let you in.”

She moved her hand on his across the table. “Then stop hiding yourself from me.”

“Maybe I’m afraid you won’t like what I’m hiding from you.”

“You’ll never know until you show me, William. Try me.” He smiled at her but didn’t say a word. Just looked at her, just let her look. And she kept looking for him.

The three women in black were still playing in the corner while the sky above them changed colour, and William lost track of time. He didn’t know how long they kept staring at each other like that, watching the expression on their faces, he couldn’t hear the music or any of the voices of the people sitting around them, but none of it was relevant. The only thing that mattered was how he felt about Jessica, how much he wanted to take her in his arms, take care of her, watch over her, let her look after him. He knew now he would have felt the same if she looked different, if she didn’t remotely resemble his sister. It wasn’t his sister he wanted, not anymore. He wanted this, the possibility of a relationship, the promise of a slice of normality.

They finished their drinks then had a second one without a meal. After their third martini William paid the bill and took her outside.

They stopped in the middle of the pavement; he slipped his arms inside her opened coat and held his hands around her waist.

“I took you out for dinner and I only got you something to drink.”

She shook her head. It didn’t matter. She could see the lights of the street around them moving even if they were both standing still.

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “I’m happy.”

His hands moved to her hips, then down to her buttocks; he squeezed her, kissed her neck, her shoulder, his face buried in the collar of her coat. Jessica kept her eyes shut. She couldn’t see people walking past them, but she knew they were there, passing by, turning their heads, watching his thigh between hers, pressing against her, his lips on her skin. He was so close to her she could feel his erection and she wanted him.

“Let’s go somewhere this weekend, Jessy.” She nodded. Yes, yes. Yes. “Let’s go out to the Bay. We can go riding or hiking or sailing or do nothing all day. We’ll do anything you want.”

Yes. Yes. Yes.

A breeze was blowing through the light material of her skirt making her feel completely naked, and the thought of being naked with him, in the middle of the street, hidden only by her opened coat, made her want him even more. He kissed her earlobe and every inch of her skin was covered in goose bumps.

“Do you love me, Jessica?” He caressed her back, held one hand on the nape of her head. “Do you love me?” He kissed her neck again, held her, held his arms around her shoulders. “Because I do. I love you. Do you love me?”

“I love you. I love you. Take everything I have.”