Chapter 42 Fon #2
Fon got up and went outside, clearing out the mess bucket and refilling the washing one with fresh water.
He smoked two cigarettes, pacing in the sun and trying to enjoy the quickening in his body of the small victory in the hut.
It was an inconsequential triumph, not worthy of this rush, and yet he felt he had reclaimed that part of himself which had been lost last time.
He had shown he had the power. He had absolute control over this man who had been above him in every way for his entire life, up until today.
He could hold him here or release him whenever he wanted; starve or feed him according to his will; keep him alive or kill him on a whim – and he realized he wasn’t just Fede’s king now. He was his god.
He felt a strange sensation running through his body. It was unfamiliar and unsettling. He thought it might be happiness, but he wasn’t sure.
Fon walked over to the abandoned farmhouse across the way, puffing on his cigarette, staring idly through the broken windows, reading the old graffiti …
He looked back at the trullo. Fede had finished eating at last and was lying on his back on the ground, his bound hands above his head, his arms outstretched and the chain pulled taut from the bolt in the wall as he positioned as much of his body as possible in the sun. Like a dog.
The dog and the god. Words reversed. Worlds reversed.
He watched how Fede’s muscles relaxed, his face slack as he breathed fresh air and sunlight for a few precious moments …
It was a simple pleasure. Perhaps the simplest. Fon smoked another cigarette and walked another lap around the house.
There was no rush, and these were the small mercies he could grant.
‘I brought something for you today,’ he said when he finally returned, almost an hour later.
Fede’s head turned on the ground to look at him. He looked better already, his cheeks gaining some colour, his eyes enlivened from the meal. ‘What is it?’
‘You’ll need to stand up.’
Fede hesitated but did as he was told, a look of alarm spreading over him as Fon pulled the razor from his pocket. He drew himself back into the shadows. ‘You said—’
‘Relax,’ Fon said, holding up a hand to calm him. ‘You need a shave.’
An astonished silence followed.
‘Don’t look so stunned. I told you the first day, we’re not savages. I’ll do what I can to help you through this – bring you good food, let you wash, lie in the sun …’
He saw that look come into Fede’s eyes, the same slightly mocking, haughty expression he’d worn when he had asked Fon last time, Am I your prisoner or your king?
But kings, he told himself, could be gracious.
Magnanimous in victory. ‘I thought it might make you feel better, more like yourself. But if you’re not interested … ’
He went to put the razor away again.
‘Wait,’ Fede stopped him. A note of desperation sounded in the word. He had been almost entirely deprived of human contact these past few weeks. The lure of comfort, any small kindness, was impossible to resist. ‘… I am.’
Fon nodded. ‘OK, then.’ He took over the washing bucket and set it down before him. ‘Soap yourself.’
Fede obeyed, getting on his knees and splashing his face so that the dirt came off in streaks, his eyes looking brighter. He wet the soap, rubbing it into an extravagant lather over his beard.
Fon watched, seeing how Fede’s eyes kept falling to the blade in his hand.
He tightened his grip on it, his mind working fast. What if the desperation and despondency – the weakness – was all an act?
Was Fede deliberately luring him in, preying on his compassion and kindness and decency? Might he lunge for the razor?
‘OK,’ Fede said, when he was seemingly satisfied the hair was soft. He held his hand out for the razor.
Fon shook his head. Did Fede really think he was so stupid as to hand him a weapon? Another tension developed between them as each man held back, wary and suspicious of the other.
‘… Tilt your head back,’ Fon commanded.
Fede didn’t stir, and Fon could read the conflict in his eyes. What kind of fool exposed his own throat to the man who was keeping him in chains? But also, what other choice did he have? He was already incapacitated.
Slowly, he lifted his chin, his eyes trained upon Fon’s every move like a sniper. Fon adjusted his grip on the blade, feeling his heart rate accelerate as he approached. Fede was the bigger man, even half starved. Even with a blade in Fon’s hand, this was a dangerous moment for them both.
He raised his hands up, pulling the skin taut, aware of Fede’s eyes tracking him closely. He pressed the blade flat against his neck, alert for the smallest twitch of a muscle, before gradually tipping the angle and bringing it down through the beard.
The sound of the bristles shearing was all Fon could hear in the silence of the tiny stone hut. They were both breathing heavily, on guard against one another as if fear was something they could smell, trust flapping like a bat about their heads and unwilling to land.
The first stroke completed, he dipped the blade in the water to clean it and reached up again. Fede still instinctively pulled away from him but as Fon repeated the action again and again, their animal instincts began to settle fractionally.
‘You know, I saw you outside Villa Maria with your friend at Silvana’s wedding,’ Fon said quietly. ‘I know what you are.’
He saw Fede’s Adam’s apple bob in his throat as his prisoner took the revelation on board. ‘If you know that … why haven’t you used it?’
‘Used it?’
‘Surely it would be easier to blackmail me than kidnap me?’
Fon smiled at the lawyer’s logic. It was the same question he had asked himself.
One word to Dante about Fede’s proclivities and this would all have been done very differently.
Blackmail was a lot cleaner, quicker and safer for them all than this; the last thing Filippo Franchetti could afford was another lurid family scandal making the headlines.
And yet Fon had remained silent, for reasons he was still trying to understand.
Was it mercy to the one Franchetti who had ever treated him as worthy?
Was the favour repaid? Or was it because, try as he might, he couldn’t quite detach himself from the scene between Fede and his friend the night Romola died?
The men’s shadows had fallen upon him, dragging him into their underworld with them, and it exercised a hold over him like nothing else in his life.
‘Yes, that’s true, but then it would follow you everywhere.
It would define you, Dante would make sure of it …
At least this way, you can walk away unblemished in body and reputation.
You’re only a pawn in these negotiations; there’s no need for your life to be ruined over it.
Within a few weeks, you’ll have put it behind you as a sore inconvenience, nothing more. ’
Fede’s eyes tracked him as he moved. ‘Can I ask you something?’ he murmured as Fon dipped the razor into the bucket again.
Fon nodded, but as he pressed the blade to the skin again, he felt Fede temper the instinct to speak. He looked back at him, the movement paused as he waited.
‘… Why do you let Dante push you around?’
Fede had barely moved his lips, the question little more than a whisper. And yet it reverberated around them like a screaming devil, all Fon’s fears thrown up like a bag of butterflies.
‘He’s dominated you your entire life …’
‘Stop,’ Fon said in a low voice.
‘You’re better than him—’
‘Don’t talk about my brother,’ Fon warned, calmly pressing the blade closer on Fede’s skin in a clear threat.
But his prisoner didn’t flinch and Fon wondered ? was this what Fede wanted?
Was this his plan – to provoke him into an angry slash, bloody and brutal but quick? It would be over within seconds.
‘You’re a good man, Fon. I know you are. But he’s not.’
Fon felt his breathing become ragged as Fede refused to look away, to back down. He was defiant – fearless and provocative – and they both knew such disrespect could not be borne. Dante would never have allowed it …
‘He’s rotten to the core and you know it.’
‘Stop!’ But images were flashing through Fon’s mind of another knife-edge pressed to another throat …
of desperate pleading, shallow breath, the rolling whites of eyes.
His hand began to shake as the memories of the murdered boy crashed upon him, but to his shock and dismay, Fede covered his hand with his own.
Fon caught his breath at the unexpected tenderness, the razor still pressing ominously against his prisoner’s neck. Fede stared into his eyes, and it was like a flashlight shining into the heart of him, exposing everything he’d kept hidden ? had had to keep hidden ? all these years.
Fede was looking at him, really looking at him, as if peering into his very soul, and he realized that Fede knew. He had always known. His secret was Fon’s too.
They were the same. Both monsters. Both liars.
Both alone.
He recognized his brother’s silhouette even in the dark, leaning against a car as he parked up.
‘What are you doing here?’ Fon frowned as he got out.
‘More to the point, what are you doing here?’ Dante replied, watching as Fon walked over to him.
Wasn’t it obvious? ‘I’m going to stay with Gabriella tonight.
’ He shrugged as carelessly as he could.
There was no possibility of going home. He felt made of glass, transparent and thin, as if his skin had been peeled away and everything he truly was could now be seen by the whole world.
He had always taken such care to hang back, to set himself at angles and deny a clear view into the heart of him, but now he felt lit from within, exposing his fatal flaw.