24. Anastasia
24
ANASTASIA
T he first time Alberto watched a revenge flick, he was so mesmerised; he discovered something about himself: if the retaliation in the second half of the movie was satisfactory enough, there was no amount of abuse he couldn’t stomach in the first half. Catharsis , he found out it was called.
Alberto was fond of that word. Catharsis .
He was robbed—he would say—several times, of his cathartic moment. When he woke from his coma, for example, he was told he could never go home. A few days later, he was on a train, and it was too late to seek answers, never mind revenge. No peace to be found there. Alberto had forever lost a part of himself, left behind in Mamma’s room in the villa on the coast of Napoli, between her vanity table and the gilded mirror. More than blood and tears, he had forfeited his voice.
“I love you, Mamma,” he whispered to the mirror. Alberto sat on a chair shaped like a throne in front of his mother’s dressing table by the window. A different chair, a different table, and a different view. What about him? Was he still the same boy?
“Do you remember our dance, Tesoro?” Mamma had asked that day, the curtains swaying in rhythm with her long black locks.
He’d stared at her, transfixed. “Of course,” he’d answered.
Mamma’s wide smile had split the skies. “Yes? Let’s put our costumes on. ”
It was almost a decade ago. Now sitting alone at her makeup station, Alberto opened every drawer and inspected their every corner, his head throbbing. Mamma wouldn’t like to see him sneaking into her bedroom and going through her stuff. But so what? She wasn’t here right now. Where was she again? Like that time at the beach… she was running away from him, and he was too small to catch up.
Alberto gritted his teeth. At the bottom of a drawer, he found her old sewing box. It used to contain thread and thimbles and colourful ribbons. Now it held a few treasures gathered throughout the years. Why didn’t she tell him about Cyril Rodin? Why did she lie to him? Did she want to run away with him and leave him behind? There was no greater betrayal than the one inflicted by a mother. Her lie was pressing on him from all sides, filling his lungs with air he felt only invited more suffering inside.
Alberto flipped the treasure box open. Did Mamma also put him in storage with her other precious artefacts, beloved but safely tucked away? Ignoring the childish voice inside of him urging him not to do it, he searched through its contents, perhaps hoping to find a note explaining everything, perhaps hoping for another answer.
There was no note. No explanation. Beside a lock of his hair and a few faded photographs of relatives he’d never met, all he found were Mamma’s old silver scissors. He held them up before him, and in their reflection, he saw his own hollow-eyed face. My God, they used to say . What a beautiful boy. So much like his mother.
The first slap he’d ever gotten was because he looked too much like his mother. And now the mirror reflected the same image, the same exhaustion at keeping up appearances. Alberto wanted release, he wanted surrender. Perhaps only then the worn-down carousel would stop spinning, its rusty gears would stop grinding anddriving him to insanity. Would it ever stop on its own, or should he take a hammer to it?
Alberto laid his burning cheek on the glossy surface of the table. When did it become like this? Maybe if he knew how it began, he would also obtain the tools to make it end. Slowly, he turned the scissors over in his hand. Focus—he had to focus.
Third time’s the charm.
No, that wasn’t it. He knocked his forehead against the table, hard enough for black dots to fill his vision. The whispered voice in his ear vanished; he let out a sigh of relief.
To him, life had begun like everyone else’s—a painful extraction from the safe haven of his mother’s womb and out into a brutal world. Except the pain never ended. To most children, the source of their joy or their torment was decided at birth. It was the primary concern of every therapist out there: Who are your parents? Who are you to them? And how do you survive a parent who doesn’t love you at all?
Alberto unfortunately knew the answer to all of these questions. He knew that even when a child escapes them, their parents’ shadow won’t leave them be. With every decision they make, they’ll hear the sound of their steps hot on their heels, feel their breath on their neck, hear their words like thousands of needles prickling their thoughts, day after day, night after night.
“Shut up.” “You’re useless.” “You’re so weak.” “Why are you always crying?” “There’s no way you could be mine.” “You look so much like your whore of a mother.” “Look at you, boy. You’re rotten to the core.”
Napoli lost the Coppa Italia against Ternana on the 11th of September, 2002.
2-nil.
Mathias was telling the truth: he really wanted to catch his parents in the act. It was never about Alberto at all. Somehow, Alberto had convinced himself Mathias had liked him from the start. He could bury that truth under a lot of lies, but, yes, the arrogant part of him believed this whole time, Mathias had lied to get close to him. Alberto just had to hook him—and hook him again and again and again. Right until he had met him, he thought he knew all there was to know about mankind.
People want good-looking partners because it makes a statement about themselves. It’s all about themselves. Look whose hand I’m holding, whose lips I’m kissing, whose arse I’m fucking. Who’s the best now? Nothing had ever been about Alberto. His entire life, it seemed, people had used him to work out their personal issues. He had never mattered to anyone but Mamma. And then everyone recoiled and clutched their chests when he dared ask, What is it? What is there to smile about?
Nothing. It had never been about him. And now the same thing happened again. Mathias used him to work out his own bullshit and then pushed him away when he became an inconvenience. Alberto gave everything up to be with him based on the stupid assumption that Mathias had sought him out, that a part of him was desperate for him, and Alberto only had to show him “Hey, look, I’m desperate for you too! I’ll do anything for you. I’ll change my hair, my clothes, my personality, I’ll do anything, and I’ll be… I’ll be worthy of your love. ”
Mati.
Watching that car drive away into the rain with his fingers curled around Mathias’s jacket, Alberto finally understood the only hooked one was him. Now Mathias had released the line, and Alberto was back underwater. Don’t believe for a second I’m like the others , Mathias had once told him. But he was. He was just like the others.
God, there was no way out of this. Alberto was long out of Diazepam, and he didn’t find any in his mother’s treasure box. Ever since the day he took clippers to his hair, she had been hiding her pills away. Instead, Alberto turned and turned the scissors in his hands. There was so much pain around. It was everywhere. Dark clouds hanging over people’s heads, poisonous gas corrupting their lungs. It was in everyone. In Joy, in Xavier, in Gwen and Kayvin, in Zak… maybe even in Eric… In Mathias, for sure, grief was like a nest of vipers slithering in his veins. In Mamma, pain was a vice-like hand around her throat. In himself… a constant feeling of drowning.
Even if things got better, he’d still carry around his scars. Probably be fucked up for the rest of his life. He was fucked up already. A fading slut, letting the worst kind of people ride him.
He was a hindrance, a burden, really. Mathias wanted to be rid of him, and now his mother was hiding things from him. Who knew the amount of people he’d hurt if he kept trudging along… and for what? For Mamma? How tiresome it was to stay alive only for the sake of another. Everything for Mamma. Everything to see her smile again. Except she never smiled.
Smiling gives you wrinkles.
Alberto turned and turned the scissors in his hands, his thoughts in disarray. He wondered what good he could ever accomplish in this world and came to the conclusion there wasn’t. He glanced toward the window for a sign, and that’s when he saw her.
Trotting up the lawn, Stasia was coming up to the main house in her workout clothes. From the vicious smile disfiguring her plain face, she was hoping to find him alone. Who knew how many people she ’d hurt in her lifetime… More than he ever could. Stasia, who was never worried, who knew she could fit him in her schedule any time she wanted. Doing Pilates at six, torturing Albertino at seven, then heading out to Le Baron for a night of fun. Cakewalk.
Alberto turned and turned the scissors in his hand — one, two, three times. Then he got up .
“Close the window, Albertino.” She said half a minute later, strolling into Mamma’s bedroom. “I know you’re so freaking high all the time you don’t even feel cold, but I do!”
Alberto didn’t reply at first. He stretched his neck out of the window. Fresh air bathed his face and gave it momentarily relief. “Just once, I wish you’d shut up.”
“Can’t hear you.” When he turned around, Stasia’s eyes widened. “Dear, dear! Look at those bloodshot eyes! What happened? Did you find out you were adopted or something?” She laughed. “Though you wish you were. You could tell people, ‘Yes, he’s a psychopath, but he’s not really my dad!’”
Alberto huffed. More pain. Thank you . He shut the window and hurriedly walked out of the room, narrowly avoiding Stasia’s attempt to grab him. Relentless, she followed after him.
“Why were you in your mommy’s room? Do you love her that much? You’re even worse than I thought.”
Alberto raced back to his room, but before he could lock the door, she was already pushing with all her weight from the other side, laughing as she did. Even in his current state, she was stronger than him. After a brief struggle the door flew open, and he was flung back into his shelf, sending its contents toppling to the floor. Suddenly, Mathias was standing in front of him, a tennis ball in his hand. Where did you get this? I despise you for what you’ve done. Alberto’s heart jolted in his chest. When he stepped back, the crunching sound of broken glass reached his ears. The blue elephant had smashed into pieces at his feet, revealing the key he had hidden inside.
“Ha!” Stasia cried, triumphant. “There it is. Give it to me.” With a shake of his head, Alberto took another step back. Her washed-out blue eyes fixed on his face, she slowly advanced on him. “What do you think you’re doing, exactly?”
Eventually, Alberto’s back met with the window, and his hands scrambled around stupidly, looking for a way out.
“You done?” She sounded bored already. In her mind, she was just doing her job. She had to do it; he had to endure it. Those were the rules of the game she had designed for them long ago.
Alberto slid a glance toward his computer. It was all lonesome in the middle of the desk. If he stayed put against the wall, she couldn’t miss and accidentally break it, so he held up his hands in front of his face and waited. She tugged at them half-heartedly at first, then rained blows over him with increasing strength, as though his lack of reaction only stirred up her rage. She beat him until she got tired, until he was crumpled on the floor, his arms draped over his head. When he finally lowered them, Stasia was sitting on his desk chair, smoking, her cheeks flushed from her efforts. After a minute or two, she put her joint between her lips and played with his bedroom key, tossing it from one hand to the other.
“What’s up with you?” she drawled. “I didn’t even hit your nose.”
Alberto could barely make out her words. Her face, like the walls of his bedroom, were undulating in a sickening rhythm. When he looked down at his hands, he saw red and mumbled, “What?”
“Your nose is bleeding.” Stasia snickered. “Look at you, you can’t even feel a fucking thing. Hey! Do you think if I hit your head really hard, your brain will come out of your nose?”
He groaned. In fact, his head was throbbing from the pain, but he was worried she’d kick him if he moved. He blinked helplessly at her until she clicked her tongue.
“I was about to offer you some Advil, but it’s not painkillers you need at this point… It’s an exorcism.”
“Help me up,” he said.
“You can still talk? I should have hit you harder.” She sounded so calm; Alberto could hear the disappointment in her voice. With great focus, he studied her face. A veil of sadness shrouded her eyes. Like the time Alberto was shocked at his own lack of emotion when Zak dumped him, Stasia probably wondered what she would have to do to him to feel something at last.
“Help me up,” he said again.
She jammed her foot in his side. “I can’t do that.”
Anastasia.
How similar the two of them were in some aspects. They both hated their life and blamed it on the interlopers who had moved into their space. She loathed him so much, she could never call him by his real name. As for him, he used her name as a safe word, because he knew he’d rather suffer endless torments than to say it out loud. He did it as a dare, at first convinced Mathias would one day stop the games and really hurt him. And he did, in the end, just not with his hands. How long had Alberto lived on the edge like this? Longing for both love and punishment?
“You’re a monster,” he whispered.
She briefly glanced at him. “Are you talking to yourself?”
“You’ll never know what love is. ”
“And you will?”
Alberto didn’t answer. His back sore and his ears ringing, he rose with difficulty, using the corner of his desk for support.
“Oh, no!” Stasia shrieked with laughter. “Are you talking about him ? Still going on about that guy, huh? Don’t you remember? He ditched you.” She stubbed out her joint on Alberto’s keyboard. “You want to know why he did that, Albertino?”
Alberto bit his tongue. Mathias was off-limits. He wouldn’t let her worm her way in using him as a weapon.
“You know it already,” she said. “You’re unlovable.”
When he shook his head, she abruptly rose from her chair, and Alberto fell back on his arse against the wall. She approached, filling the space above him until all he could see was her distorted face.
“But you are,” she said, her eyes brimming with fake empathy. “My sweet, if you weren’t unlovable, your daddy wouldn’t have hit you so hard, you’ll wonder for the rest of your life if you were born that stupid or if he’s the reason you’re so slow.” Her eyes gradually filled with tears. “Albertino… Don’t you sometimes wish he’d finished the job? That you hadn’t woken up to make your mommy’s life miserable? Moving from country to country, from stepfather to stepfather, never able to settle down…” Her eyes grew darker as she bent her neck and brought her face so close to his that the stench of her breath reached his nostrils, turning his stomach. She was in a trance, her expression betraying the glee of someone who was about to finally get to enjoy a meal they had taken a long time to prepare. “Have you forgotten? The one time your mother did something good for you and gave you the chance to become someone… you… what? Shaved your fucking head and threw a tantrum and passed on a million-dollar deal? Surely you couldn’t have been that stupid by design. Or maybe… maybe you always were, and your daddy saw it, and he couldn’t cope with it.”
There was no light left in the room. All there was was Stasia, her round face, her laughter, her glistening eyes. All there was in his world was pain, and the prospect of more to come.
“Why?” he ventured, awed by her cruelty. “Why are you like this?” He caught in her eye a brief glimpse of confusion.
“Why don’t you ask yourself?”
Alberto’s head was throbbing too much for her words to make sense. He attempted to grip the side of his desk and missed. “Tell me…”
“Tell you what? ”
“Tell me what I have to do, to make you st?—”
She drew back, and suddenly, light surged into the room. Alberto could finally draw in a breath. His lungs filled with air, and he became lightheaded.
“Disappear,” Stasia said, her eyes narrowing. “That’s all I ever wanted. This house may be large, but there isn’t enough room for all of us. I never wanted this, I will never want this. It’s my house, and it’s my dad.”
She bore down on him again, and he flinched. Papà had similar eyes, black with hatred. In their reflection, Alberto saw himself. Tall and yet small; frail little bird with no voice. He wondered if his mother saw a similar sight the night he almost lost his life.
“And if I leave?” he asked, his hand fumbling around for the side of his desk again. This time, he found it. Alberto slowly pushed himself up to his feet. Something warm trickled down his nostril, and he wiped it with his sleeve. “If I disappear? You wouldn’t have to share your house with me anymore.”
Stasia drew herself to her tallest. “Depending how you leave here…” She cast him an ominous smile. “I’ll get your mother next.”
There was a slight pause, a deafening silence. Golden dust particles floated between them, lightweight yet clear. Then a thundering crack split the air when his hand, like a whip, met its target. The dust particles scattered.
The force of the blow was such that Stasia fell against the door to the closet with a cry of surprise. She glared, she smirked, she puffed out a laugh. But Alberto’s pain was gone, and his voice, his voice was found again. His hands felt strong as they curled around her shoulders.
When he saw she was still gleeful, her hand clutching her cheek, his rage burst out of him. He shook her. He hurled insults at her as he did. And he shook her, again and again. And again and again, she crashed and bounced against the doors like a rag doll. He shook her until she stopped laughing, until her curses turned to shrieks, then to sobs, until two powerful hands yanked him away from her and hurled him across the room. Alberto landed on the edge of his bed and sunk to the floor, his heart pounding and his throat dry.
When his vision came into focus again and he met his mother’s eyes, he was submerged with horror at what he had done.