Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew) (20 page)

             
That was a question as complex as the one about what would have happened to the dead people resting all below around me if they had been still alive...

             
‘This place is inspiring strange thoughts inside you –’ my mind didn’t miss to remark a bit ironically, and I shook my head in another vain attempt to focus.

             
And I went on forward, even though I was already beginning to think that my effort made no sense at all – the cemetery I had found myself in was definitely not the one from my nightmare – neither the atmosphere, nor the landscapes surrounding me were the same, and besides, there were no fallen gravestones anywhere to be seen.

             
In order to be able to sleep calmly the next night – or at least to feel free to try – I took the pain to walk around the whole burial ground, so as to become completely sure in what I was already intuitively convinced in; the tour occupied almost a whole hour of my time, but yet, I didn’t see Odda’s place anywhere.

             
Actually, what had I expected to see? I didn’t think I had better psychic abilities than the average human, so how would I have dreams factually revealing the past or warning me about the future?

             
Having realized that my wandering around was already aimless, I turned towards the gates through which I had walked in, and didn’t miss to notice that the sun was bathing the stone vault above in lively majestic beauty. The emerald blades of gentle grass gracefully bowing to the barely existing wind, the tiny robin peering bashfully from behind a hawthorn branch, the fragile-looking butterfly which trembled above my head as if to bid me farewell – this was Life – Life in its purest form, seemingly even more alive than anywhere else, as on the graveyard, the contrast between it and the utter overwhelming death was far more impressive than on any other place.

             
Nonetheless, I hurried to leave that world of stillness, where life and death were existing in a surprising and a bit ominous symbiosis, and all the time on the way back, I was feeling grateful that I had had the chance to leave that place at all, as many before me hadn’t.

             
This was not the cemetery where I would find Odda’s grave.

             
If it existed at all...

                                          Knowing that Cardew wouldn’t look for me that day unless I called him – as I had told him I really needed to work – I was feeling more at ease, and as soon as I got to my room, I started with the project I had to hand in.

             
Nevertheless, the sleep full of nightmares hadn’t charged me with any invigorating energy, and the cold terror-filled hours after that had exhausted even the impressive amount I had initially had, so I was feeling vaguely tired, but that didn’t matter to me at all – I had the steel-like will to do what I wanted to, regardless of all circumstances – even those which were including me.

             
I had no idea how much time had passed as I wasn’t distracting myself with glimpsing at the clock, but when the cloudy evening started falling above the charmingly blushing horizons, I stopped to take a more relaxed breath and find out that I had done a great job despite the obstacles of temporary fatigue, and that I was already feeling the pleasing need to go out.

             
And, however strange I was finding it, I wasn’t feeling tired anymore – as though I was functioning on the accumulator principle: the more I moved, the more inexhaustible the amount of brisk energy I had was becoming.

             
“Cardew?” my voice rang in his ear through the phone as soon as he answered my call – and it is worth mentioning that he did it in the first moment possible.

             
“Oh, my goddess of loveliness hasn’t forgotten me!” Cardew chuckled cheerfully, obviously glad to hear me. “What happened, lovely, are you planning to grant me with a lovely evening out?”

             
“Of course I’m not,” I giggled in spite of trying to sound serious and cruel. “I plan to use you to take me out because I’m bored.”

             
“Such a beautiful parasite,” the boy laughed with innocently mischievous delight. “Why would I mind that? Hmm... Where can I take you from?”

             
“Where are you?” I informed myself while piling the books on the desk so as not to trip against them around the room.

             
“In the hall where we rehearse,” his intonation itself was smiling, full of promises for the enchanting time he was about to give me. “Apart from that play we’re both in, I have a monologue to practise, and I can’t do it home in front of the mirror.”

             
“Why not?” I shrugged just because I could instinctively perceive that his pride would enjoy him answering to such a question, and his quiet laughter gently tickled the inside of my ears.

             
“Because I can’t orientate for the space where the audience is – where I will look, in which direction I will turn – you know how it is –” Cardew explained negligently, and if it was not for his total perfection when he was performing, one could think that he was just showing off. “You can come here if you want, and we’ll go out together after that, what do you think?”

             
“That you are simply looking for an audience that will praise you,” I chuckled teasingly but with easily perceptible approval.

             
“Well –” he drawled in a sweet charming way and I could imagine how irresistibly attractive his eyes were while he was pronouncing it. “For me it would be a real pleasure if I can have such a love of an audience –”

             
I burst into inoffensive laughter and he must have smirked.

             
“Okay, just give your audience five minutes to get dressed and it’s coming,” I promised and hurried to do so.

             
The hall wasn’t too far from where I lived, so I reached it rather quickly, and, as the door wasn’t locked, I slid myself inside unnoticed, and had a stealthy look around.

             
A single bewilderingly white spotlight was the only obstacle in the way of the ubiquitous thirsty darkness striving to conquer the large hall, and Cardew’s figure standing lonesome in the striking light was beautifully emphasized in an unearthly ethereal way. Proud in his solitude, the young actor was absolutely alone in the middle of the stage, but his magnetic presence was filling the whole hall with his strong overwhelming charisma, enchanting and electrifying like the mighty thunders in a stormy sky.

             
“But it is my fault, too, I am as guilty as she is for her infidelity –” he was reciting with fierce self-destructive passion without having seen me yet. “And now this duel will break her heart, no matter who dies –”

             
Comfortably sunk in Cardew’s ignorance of my being there, I leant my elbows on the back of the last line of seats and held my breath not to let him know that his audience was already in place; walking nervously up and down the stage as if he was really leading an inner conversation with himself, he looked so flawlessly enraged, confused, and regretful at the same time, that I shuddered with mixed feelings of excitement and alarm.

             
It was rather scary as I thought about how perfect a liar he was – extremely cold, unfeeling, but able to display dead convincingly each shade of emotion a human could ever sense.

             
The ideal chameleon.

             
The most challenging foe.

             
A smile tickled my lips mischievously, and I hid it into the darkness, an innocent attempt to be more virtuous urging me not to get too focused on his handsomeness so as to be able to enjoy his play better.

             
Cardew’s adorable voice was echoing clearly in the whole auditorium, but I didn’t need to listen to the exact words to be aware of his character’s feeling – his movements were revealing every detail about the mood and thoughts of the man in whom the actor had turned himself – so brightly and at the same time naturally, not theatrically boosted, that I couldn’t help staring in admiration.

             
How could that boy be so expressive on stage, and in real life so unwilling to make a single confession even when his feelings were damn obvious? He was so insistently trying to convince me that he was senselessly cold that I was almost ready to believe him... And was he really?

             
And did he really want to be...

             
“I have been so full of myself I never noticed her tears –” Cardew was going on from the stage, his head shaking desolately; gradually, slowly, I was becoming more and more horrified by the ease with which every insignificant curve of his tone was awaking deep suffocating emotions inside me, making me feel like a helpless puppet his faked perceptions were shoving in all directions without him even noticing it. “If I had been more caring, if I had showed her how much I loved her, she would have never turned to another man for the affection she needed –”

             
“But –” he went on, rising his head, the immaterial flames of hurt pride smouldering in his eyes. “My wife is supposed to be faithful to me! It was her who cheated, after all, and I have the right to defend my honour! Why would it matter to me that her lover will die from my sword tonight!? Why would it matter that she would cry!?! –”

             
The might that had risen in his voice was so impressive that I instinctively drew a bit back; Cardew couldn’t see me as I was in the safe darkness at the back of the hall and the limelight was dazzling him, but I was feeling it as if his eyes were fixed right onto me and the immense fury flashing inside them was ready to destroy me in a moment with a single blink of his.

             
And then, all the powerful rage that had been gradually gathering inside his chest, impulsively melted away in a second, and was replaced by helpless quiet melancholy, tender and hopeless, rendering him too weak even to struggle to overcome it.

             
“But it does matter,” Cardew uttered with a deep sorrowful sigh, his head hanging lifelessly as if it was no more than a burden for him, too heavy to endure anymore, as the thoughts roaming inside it were stifling his soul into their entangled confusion. “It does matter to me... Because I love her –”

             
My heart missed a beat and the breath stuck in my throat as though I had been hit by a flash of lightning; Cardew’s soft desperate intonation while pronouncing the confession had touched me so deeply that it had shaken my whole being and completely overpowered me with its heart-breaking tenderness. The utter dramatic breakdown in his eyes made a painfully piercing chord loudly ring and resonate in my soul, where the memory of it would remain untouched as long as I was alive.

             
As if he had bewitched me...

             
“I am going to fight in that duel!” Cardew raised his voice again, tone trembling with the intensity of emotions. “For heavens’ sake, I am! Oh, damn me! –” the exclamation flung him on his knees on the floor, and I realized that I was gazing at him without breathing at all, so moving his acting was.

             
With his lips half-departed, the boy was staring intensely at the darkened ceiling above as though some invisible help could finally come from there; his head was tossed backwards and the limelight was making the skin of his neck appallingly deathly white, the hair splashing behind his shoulders towards his back twisting in the most fiery nuances of crimson.

             
His last words were uttered with such imposing intonation that I shuddered again, although I had petrified in my place as soon as I had entered the hall.

             
“The one of us who dies tonight will have wasted his death in vain!”