I made my way through the wheat, humming to myself. In the moonlight, a delicate silvery web seemed to be thrown over the grayish-green stems, giving them a surreal sheen. As I moved them apart, so that the long whiskers on the ears tickled my hands, I could see the sea of cornflowers beneath my feet, - bits of blue sky that were catching up with me, too late, having come from that other life I had left behind. It was like some distant dream now, that life, and each night made it harder to believe that it had ever been there for me.
"One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small....and those your mother gives you don"t do anything at all...go ask Alice, when she is ten feet tall..."
In the darkness, a chorus of crickets was chirping, and the olive groves in the distance were shaking, it seemed, with their loud, triumphant song; the owls were calling each other; small creatures, - maybe mice, - scurried here and there through the field.
"When you go chasing rabbits, and you know you"re gonna fall...tell "em a hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call...call Alice when she was just small..."
The night was breathing with joy, and my heart beat fast with the anticipation of something that was just about to come, - something I knew nothing about, but which, I was sure, was great and miraculous, and which would change the world as I knew it forever. It was out of place, that joy, and in a strange way, it mingled with the feeling which I"d always had deep down, and which had become especially strong during these several nights in the fields with Lucio, - that everything was wrong.
"When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead....and the White Knight"s talking backwards, and the Red Queen"s "off with her head"..."
"You"ll betray me, of course, won"t you," I heard Lucio behind me. It was a statement, not a question, and one could think he was talking about something so ordinary and self-evident it hardly even deserved mention.
Calm, Ursula, I told myself. Calm.
Lucio"s cornering people with questions of a "no comment" type was certainly nothing new. Neither was his lack of tact. It was just a way of making sure that someone else wouldn"t try to get too close to him. I had gotten used to it, having worked for Lucio for more than five years, and simply didn"t listen when he got like that, or laughed it off if it got too bad.
But now Lucio"s blunt remark touched me more than one could expect. Hearing it made me tense up, and the rage was stuck somewhere in my throat, ready to burst out.
"Oh, thanks for reminding me," I feigned innocent surprise and excitement. "I almost forgot. Got to run and do it right now, only first I have to find the folks I could betray you to. When would you like me to do this? Now, or a little later?"
I turned back towards Lucio. He was walking waist-deep in the wheat; his gray eyes were catching the silvery light, and he gave me a look above his narrow, thick silver-rimmed glasses which was determined, but also strangely thoughtful. He seemed intent on something I couldn"t quite find a name for.
In his hand, he was holding a wild poppy of a very bright scarlet, which he had apparently picked along the way. Presently, he stopped and held out the flower against the silver disk of the moon, watching its petals flare up; for a split second, it looked like a butterfly of fire had sat down onto a tall blade of grass to rest, its folded transparent, wrinkled, very fragile wings fluttering in the wind. Then he brought down his hand again and resumed walking, absent-mindedly plucking the red petals off the flower, one by one. I turned away from him, and we walked on in silence.
After a few minutes passed, I turned once more to look at Lucio, just as was bending to reach out for two more poppies which were growing right at his feet, and looked exactly the same as the first one. Amidst the immaculate blue of the cornflowers, they were like stains of freshly spilled blood. Frowning somewhat and apparently thinking about something else entirely, he twirled the stems in his hands for a while; afterwards he clasped the flowers in his fist, bruising them, and rolled them between his palms, before rubbing the fingers on each hand together as he looked at the red smeared over them.
Then he raised his eyebrows a little and looked at me.
"And why not?" he asked, just as matter-of-factly. "You and Francesco are two peas in a pod. That you and he have something serious going on is obvious. Why wouldn"t you?"
I felt amused, in spite of myself. Really, why shouldn"t I? There, Ursula, name the sensible reasons for being loyal to Lucio Sansino: reason a, reason b, reason c. And do provide an explanation as to why each of these is valid.
"In any case," I said, "if I"m going to betray you indeed, I sort of won"t tell you beforehand, you know?"
I tried to sound as innocently mischievous as I could, but the tension hung heavy between us. It had been relieved only a little because I"d pretended I'd heard nothing special, and just joked it of. Now it was thickening again, and I felt our talk was not over yet. There was more to come.
We had reached the olive grove that began on the edge of the field. I took the backpack off my shoulders and flung it onto the grass, and we sat down beside an old tree. I undid the backpack, found the cheese and brown bread, unwrapped them and cut them into slices. No butter, that"s a shame, - but then, who cares right now. I made some sandwiches and handed several over to Lucio, leaving one for myself. Then I searched the inner pockets for the avocado and, having peeled off the wrinkled black skin, began to slice and eat the creamy, whitish inside. When I remembered there was some garlic, I took some of that as well, and the sharp, burning taste and scent contrasted nicely with the delicate fruit.
We didn"t speak much, and used only the most necessary, mundane words. Pass the water, please; want some avocado; give me one more sandwich; what an appetite for garlic, eh. The tension was nearly intolerable.
Lucio spoke up without warning when we had almost finished eating, and were drinking water from our flasks. I sensed it was a continuation of the conversation that was begun earlier, and listened intently, trying to understand what he was driving at.
"Roberto, my son," he screwed the top back onto the flask. "You know I had a son, right?"
"Had?"
"No more," he shoved the flask into the backpack. There was a sharpness to his words, some challenging note that went beyond his usual irritability and deliberate bluntness. "He was lost to me even before he died. When he joined Saeeda, he ceased to be my son."
"Saeeda Bengadi, aka Alessandra? Francesco"s right hand?"
"Yes. He was twenty then. I knew nothing of it at the time, and realized what"d happened only after he disappeared and there was no trace of him to be found anywhere. When a year had passed, he came to me, and he was no longer who he used to be. He tried to explain to me why he did it. I told him that he"s not my son and would never be again, so it was no use begging or trying to reason with me; and that, were we to meet once more - whichever way it happened - I wouldn"t spare him."
He paused.
"In one more year"s time, I came across him in a cellar, sleeping."
Lucio was silent, and the darkness around us was filled with that which remained unsaid. The pools of something crimson and strange, the sword, now useless and suddenly too heavy, and the stench of lamp oil splashing on the earthen floor before it was lit and the fire began to crackle as it devoured that which was too hard to behold. I shuddered.
"It was too much for Violeta," Lucio said more quietly, though just as firmly after the pause, and I thought his voice quivered with something other than anger. "You know what happened to her, do you."
"It was hard on me, too. I couldn"t do my duties proper for a good half year after that. But I had no other choice. He had betrayed me twice: by crossing over to an enemy"s side, and by becoming what he was in the end, and willingly at that. Traitors have to die."
A rosy film had come over his eyes, and as he spoke, his voice quivered; but he paid no attention to the tears, as if they were something totally irrelevant, having nothing to do with himself.
I sat stunted, wondering what this man had done to himself, as well as to his loved ones. It didn't come as too much of a surprise that Lucio's son died by his hand; I'd long suspected something horrid had happened between them once, judging from the way how Lucio would react to anyone's mentioning his son to him. But this - above all, the very way he spoke of it - this was too much, even for Lucio.
It wasn"t really his son's death or his wife's insanity that he was talking about. I couldn"t get rid of the feeling that he meant something other than what he was actually saying; and that the ugly way he was twisting everything around was in some way connected to this, as well as his categorical tone of utter conviction, which was completely uncalled for, as I never contradicted him. Or the way he made himself go on, in spite of his tears.
"It was just. I had given him his life, and it was I who took it."
The sharpness of his voice had increased. He turned and looked at me, drilling me through with his steely gray eyes, and, it seemed, trying to tell me something that was never mentioned. I began to understand.
"It was you who ordered my sister"s murder," I said slowly. Something was beginning which I had no control over, I could sense this, but I still felt I had to ask.
"Yes."
His voice was filled with a rupturing, abrupt anger that wasn"t directed at anyone in particular, and was about to burst out aimlessly way at any moment.
"She didn"t deserve to live. I"m sure she agreed to it on her own accord. She was as much of a traitor as Roberto was, - to you, to James, to anyone who"d ever loved her. That she didn"t endure what Francesco imposes on all newcomers is another matter. Or maybe the change went wrong. He himself must"ve gotten sick of her rushing into his arms willingly and hanging on his neck - I"d be, in his place -"
"Stop," I said sharply, turning to him. Heat was rising to my cheeks, and they began to burn. That"s not true, you know it, it"s not true and you keep throwing it in my face, being fully aware how dear she was to me -
"- But she"d wanted to be in it. Had she survived, she"d have become worse than Saeeda."
"Stop -"
"It was best for herself anyhow. It"s a good deal better to die than to be that sort of creature. So you may thank me for saving her from the misery of it."
I jumped to my feet, burning all over.
"You stop -"
The heat burst out from inside me in a suffocating wave and swallowed me whole. I must"ve been screaming something, but it didn"t matter; some mist had come over me, and I lost track of what was going on, until I was conscious of lashing out and striking him full force on the face -
I stood, breathing heavy, trying to push the anger back to the recesses of my being, from where it had come. Hot tears were rolling rapidly down my cheeks. A moment more, and it"d have been too late. But, while already wrapped in that haze, I must"ve by some instinct stopped on the very brink, before the rage would"ve boiled over and destroyed him. Only a moment, one single moment...
I was suddenly very weak. My legs were like cotton wool, and, if it weren"t for the tree trunk on which I"d leaned for support, I would"ve sunk down.
Lucio lay about a yard away from me. He must have gotten up as well, and when I had struck him, the blow sent him sprawling onto the ground. Now he was half sitting up, leaning on one arm; he wasn"t even trying to shield himself with the other, and was only gazing intently at me.
Begging.
Then it dawned on me what was it that he wanted from me.
How hadn"t I understood it before? He"d been asking for it all along, hadn"t he, and I didn"t realize it. This is why he"d done his best to be left alone with me in the countryside. And I was just a split second away from actually doing it...
Still shivering and weak, I walked over to Lucio, and stretched out my hand.
"I"m sorry," I said very softly. "I lost control."
He remained motionless, watching me with a mixture of suspicion, surprise and, above all, bewilderment. The minutes passed and I stayed with my hand stretched out to him, while his gray eyes scrutinized me as he tried to understand something that was beyond his grasp. A sense of significance came to me; I understood this was a turning moment, after which things wouldn"t be the same, and a great deal depended on how it would go. Then something in Lucio softened, and his bronzy hand clasped my own, scalded by the sun to chocolate brown. I helped him to his feet, he found his glasses in the grass, and we walked back to where our things were left.
I sat down and, drawing up my knees, buried my face in my folded arms. I was thoroughly sick of myself, and a deep sadness had come after the anger had subsided; and, trembling all over, I gave way to the tears. From far away, I heard Lucio"s very quiet, pensive voice.
"You were right all along. I don"t know you at all."