3. Dimitri
3
DIMITRI
13-YEARS-OLD
Lombardy
The days are growing longer, and the mountains are losing the snow. Soon, it will be nothing but a crown they wear as the valleys bathe in sunshine.
The crash of a plate being smashed in the kitchen has me rolling my eyes. Mama and Papa will be fighting again. They fight a lot these days.
The servants are long gone, and Mama has to do most of the cleaning of this big, old house. She and Papa argue a lot about it, but he says they don’t have the money now. Mama asks him to move to America, for a new life. Her sister is there, she says. An aunty I've never met. But Papa says he’ll never leave Italy.
His business is not doing well, and we must cut back. I only have tutors three afternoons a week now. They give me work to do, and luckily for me, they say I am clever and learn fast. It means I am not behind, despite not getting enough tutoring.
I head out of my room, hang my head over the banister, and listen.
“We can send him to school,” Papa says. “That would save on tutor fees.”
“He’d have to board; it would cost a fortune.”
“Not if he worked for a lot of his costs. They let some of the boys do that. Or he could stay with a family in the town for a small cost. Much less than tutors three times a week.”
“No,” Mama screeches. “You won’t take my boy away from me.”
“ Our boy,” Papa says heavily. “He is my boy too. Haven’t I raised him like my own? Haven’t I provided for him? Yet he still carries his dead father’s name. Not mine. You and his stupid Russian Babushka filling his head with fairy tales. You pretend he was some hero, yet the man was not worthy of licking my shoes.”
“It’s for her ,” Mama cries. “She has lost everyone, and Dimitri is all she has left. What does it matter to you? You are the one he calls Papa. You don’t love him, or me, but yet you demand it in return of us. All you want is control. To be the one in charge. You’re the one he wants to go hunting with. You’re the one he asks to help him with his homework. Let the old lady have her daydreams.”
“She hasn’t even been to visit in two years. Perhaps it is time to tell the boy the truth about his sniveling father. I still have the note.”
“ No. ” The word is a horrified whisper.
My blood has turned to ice. Tell me what? What note ?
Mama sounds terrified and sad at the same time. “I swear, if you do, Anton…”
He laughs, and it sounds like a rusty blade being sharpened. “What? You’ll leave me? You already have, Vera. You walk around this house like a beautiful apparition. You’re here in body but not in spirit.”
“What do you expect? You think I don’t know? About the dowdy farmer’s wife down the valley that you’re plowing whenever he’s not there? Or before that, the servants, one after another.”
Fucking hell. She knows ?
I flashback to seeing Papa screwing the servant over his desk. I didn’t really know what it meant back then, but a few years later I came to understand. I grew scared they’d split up and we’d go back to Russia, which is often on the news showing people waiting in line for rations of bread.
I knew from Russian Nonna’s letters how hard things were. It’s why I never shared the secret; it's been eating me up inside instead.
Did Papa know I disliked him deep down? Did he pick up on my disdain, or did he truly think I wanted to go hunting with him? Perhaps he really is blind to everything but his own wants, because it must have coated every glance I shot his way. Carried itself on the air between us whenever I spoke. It lived in the house with us, a dark, malignant presence.
The sniffing noise from the kitchen tells me Mamma is crying.
“Those women mean nothing. It’s just what men do.”
“Weak, pathetic men,” she snarls. “They aren’t even as beautiful as me. You have a true beauty under your roof, and you go and rut with the red-faced farmer’s wife. You’re pathetic. Lower than low.”
“Maybe you should ask yourself why I do it?” Papa says. “If you weren’t such a frigid bitch, I wouldn’t have to, would I?”
There’s a crack. The sharp sound of skin against skin. My body tenses.
“Touch me again, woman, and you’ll feel my fist.” The growled words carry up the stairs.
My stomach drops. If he hits Mama, I’ll kill him.
“I think we should get a divorce,” Mama’s voice is soft and shaky.
“Fine by me. I hope you’ll enjoy the Russian winters.” Papa’s laugh is as cold as the frost glittering on the ground outside.
“I won’t be going back to Russia, asshole. I’ll be going to America, to be with my sister. You’ll have nothing. No wife. No son. Nothing. Who will inherit this place? Huh? Who will carry on your memory? No one. You have driven them all away. Now you’ve done the same to me.”
The sound of a chair crashing to the floor echoes in the room, and I’m moving before I think about it. Papa hit Mama .
I grab the axe by the door, placed there for Papa to chop wood around the side of the house, and race into the kitchen.
I raise the axe, but it drops to the floor with a clatter. I’ve let go, my hand slack.
In front of me is Papa, on the floor by the fallen chair. Mama is bent over him, her hands fluttering like butterflies over his face and chest.
“Anton? What’s happening? Anton?” She shakes him and sobs.
Papa’s face is twisted, and he’s gurgling but not speaking.
Mama turns to me, her face white. “Call the doctor, Dimitri. Now.”
I race into the hallway and use the phone there to dial the doctor.
By the time he arrives, it is too late.
They take Papa away covered in a blanket and say they have to do a thing called a Postmortem. Mama says that he wasn’t even sick. The only thing was that he’d gotten a bite on his leg a little earlier. A spider maybe.
I’m sitting with her in the lounge now. Her face is ashen. I should be upset. Devastated. The only father I have known has died.
Instead, a strange, cold numbness has washed over me. I feel nothing.
Two days later, Mamma starts to pack up the house. She’s been crying a lot. It turns out Papa betrayed her in death too. He left everything to his distant family, and nothing to us except for a joint bank account. There is enough to get us tickets to America and to support us for about a year. After that, Mama says if she hasn’t found work, we’ll be in trouble. We will have to leave the house soon because some distant cousin of Papa’s owns it now. No, not Papa. He wasn’t my real father, and I will no longer think of him that way. Anton . That’s all he will be to me now.
Listening to the sounds of her packing up the ornaments in the living room, I sneak up to the attic to resume my hunt. I’ve been consumed with the need to find the note they were discussing. I found a locked drawer in the desk, and it’s obsessed me that I can’t get into it. I open Papa’s desk and hunt again for the key to the locked drawer. I’ve looked each day, and yet I can’t find the damn key. If I can’t find the key, I can’t open the drawer, and the note must be in there as it isn’t anywhere else.
Finally, I have had enough. Desperation gripping me, I grab a screwdriver from the small toolbox, and I pry open the locked drawer, splintering the wood in the process.
Papers and a shiny, gold pen catch my attention. I rifle through the documents and see nothing with my real father’s name. What the hell? Anton said there was a note related to Russian Papa.
I read through each piece of paper, and when I’m done, I truly hate Anton. The letters are from various women.
My jaw is clenched as I read them. They talk about Mamma. They laugh about her, say they can’t believe how cold she is. They write poems to Anton and talk about how happy they could make him, unlike his icicle wife .
I freeze as I come across one that mentions me. It asks Anton if I’m still being an “entitled little shit” and says that he should send me away to study. It says if I wasn’t here, they’d have more chances to be together. It’s signed by that bitch, the farmer’s wife.
I tuck the farmer’s wife’s letters away and burn the rest, because I don’t want Mamma to ever read them, and then I put on my boots and coat and head over the hills to the farm.
When I arrive there, the farmer is in the field with the sheep, which is lucky for me.
Or maybe not. As I walk toward him, swirling tendrils of panic clutch at my stomach. This could go wrong, and he could decide to shoot the messenger. He has a shotgun propped against the fence. He always has it with him in the field. It’s so he can shoot any predators worrying his sheep. Anton had explained when I asked about it. I wish I had a gun of my own. I don’t. The only thing I possess is courage and the determination to make his wife pay for her sins.
I approach the farmer, Tobia, and he waves at me when he glances my way.
He’s a small man. Smaller even in height than Mamma. I’m already tall, and I have the broadest shoulders of any boy my age. Russian Nonna says I take after my father, and that one day I’ll be a big, strong man . Anton would always snort when she said such things.
Tobia pushes his cap back and wipes his forehead. When I reach him, I pause, unsure what to do. I thought telling him would be the best revenge, but I keep eyeing the shotgun and decide not. Why ruin his life, anyway? Instead, I force myself to make small talk with him and tell him we are leaving soon to be with Mamma’s sister. He nods, but seems perplexed at my chattiness.
He glances back to his work.
“Can I go and say goodbye to Bettina?”
His frown deepens. “If you wish, boy. I didn’t really think you spoke to her often.”
“She gave me cakes some days,” I lie.
“Oh, that’s her. She loves baking.”
I nod. She might love baking, but she never gave me anything sweet. I bet she gave fake Papa plenty of sugar, though.
“Thank you. Have a good life.” I grin.
He shakes his head as if I’m strange and goes back to his sheep. I resist the urge to grab the shotgun and blow Bettina’s brains out in the kitchen. If I did, I’d get arrested and never see America. Now that the idea of leaving is sinking in, I’m excited to have a new start. I won’t risk it for someone as pathetic as the red-cheeked farmer’s wife.
When I push open the partially ajar kitchen door, I see Bettina elbow deep in a mixing bowl. She really does like to bake. Her skin is pale like the dough, except for the redness of her face. Her arms and lower legs are pale and stout. She’s a plain woman, I think. Not like Mamma. Mamma is a true beauty. Everyone says so.
Why did Anton prefer Bettina?
Something happens to me in that moment. A bone deep conviction that I will never be like Anton. I make a vow. I’ll never marry someone if it leads to being like him. I once heard Russian Nonna tell Mamma that all men were the same. Pigs , she had said. So, if one day I’ll be the same, then I won’t make false marriage promises.
“Oh, Dimitri.” Bettina finally sees me in the doorway. Her brows raise. “Um, are you okay? Do you need something?”
“I have some news.”
“I already know. About your papa.” She plucks her hands from the bowl and wipes flour from them. Walking over to me, she takes a seat and indicates for me to do the same.
I sit on the worn chair. My fingers brush over the smoothed wooden edge of the seat. This chair must be very old. I wonder about all the people who have placed their asses on it over the years. Did Anton? Did he screw Bettina on this chair?
My cock starts to swell and a wave of self-loathing crashes over me. What the hell? I hate Anton, and I’m glad he’s dead. As for this creature, she’s nothing but a floury, pasty mess. I can’t stand her white and pink skin, or the way her wispy hair sticks to her forehead. Her overly full mouth makes me feel sick.
Still, these days my cock reacts to almost anything. I need to touch it a lot. For a moment an utterly depraved though hits me. Could I use these letters to make Bettina suck me?
Bettina smiles at me, unsure. I can’t stand her, but I’d still love to know what a woman’s lips feel like wrapped around my cock. I bet she’d do it, if it meant her stupid husband didn’t find out what a slut she is.
But Mamma would be horrified if I did that. It would also make me more like Anton, and haven’t I just vowed never to be like him?
“I’m so sorry about your papa. That must be very hard for you.”
“Not really. He was an asshole.”
She gasps, and her mouth remains in a surprised O.
“Cut the crap; you know exactly what he was like.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her cheeks grow redder.
“I think you do. You weren’t special, you know. He screwed a lot of women. Mostly servants.”
She flinches but quickly rearranges her features.
I take out the letters and wave them in front of her. “He kept your letters, as a nice little memento. I’ve just seen your husband in the field.” I flick through the letters. “I almost dropped these. That would have been a shame, wouldn’t it?”
Her face tightens, and the redness in her cheeks has faded as if it is draining down her double chin and the creamy column of her throat.
The plan hits me at the last moment. “I’d like a lot of things in life, but you see, my step-bastard didn’t leave us much money. Everyone talks so much around here, and they say your mother left you a lot of precious jewelry when she died.” I’m going to take her jewels. For Mamma.
Her face grows paler still. “Those things are family heirlooms, and Tobia would know if they disappeared. How would I explain it? We were going to use them to pay for our retirement.”
“You have a fucking farm,” I spit. The swear word feels so good against my tongue. A side of me I never felt before roars inside. An angry, scary part. “Land. A house. Equipment. Livestock. Sell that when you retire.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t give you all my mother’s jewels.”
“Did I ask for them all ?” I say calmly.
Fire is burning through me, lighting up long-dark areas. It feels good. Powerful. I like this, I realize. I like tormenting her.
She’s scared, and it makes my cock even harder.
“You’re a boy. I could call my husband right now and get him to beat you to a pulp.”
She lunges forward and manages to grab some of the letters, but I scrunch my hand into a fist, saving the rest.
“Doesn’t matter,” I tell her. “I have more at the house. If you don’t do what I want, I will make sure your husband—and the entire community—read those letters.”
Her hand hits the table, palm down, making a loud slapping sound. “What the fuck do you want, you little shit?”
There she is. The real Bettina. She isn’t the pleasant, ruddy-faced, cake-baking, farmer’s wife. She’s the nasty bitch who screwed my step-fucker behind Mamma’s back and wrote awful things about us.
“Enough to be comfortable for a while. Until we get sorted. The bastardo left us nothing.”
She glances at the knife block.
“If you think your reputation will be shredded by these letters, I think it would be worse if a dead kid was found in your kitchen.”
Her piggy eyes narrow to slits. “My husband would help me cover it up.”
“He might. Initially.” I’m thinking fast, now. “Until he gets the letters that are still back at the house, with instructions to deliver them to him and the priest, if anything happens to me.”
“You little bastard. Blackmail is a sin.”
I laugh, and it sounds ancient, not the laugh of a child. “Says the fornicator.” I learned that word in bible studies. I crack my neck side to side. “Shall we go and look at your jewelry? You can pick out a couple of pieces you don’t mind parting with. I won’t take it all. Don’t screw me over, though,” I warn, “and give me cheap crap, or I’ll destroy you from America. I can always send those letters to the church and the town council.”
She bites her cheek. “How do I know you won’t do so anyway? You could take the jewelry and still ruin my life months later.”
I watch her for a long moment. “You’re right. But I give you my word, I won’t.”
She snorts. “Oh, well then, in that case.” Her eye roll is epic.
I smile. “I get where you’re coming from, but you don’t really have much choice. Do you?”
I decide there and then that as well as never marrying and making false promises, I will be a man of my word, in the way Anton wasn’t. “I swear to you I won’t send the letters if you help us.”
Her hand flexes on the table, and I think she might be about to hit me. Instead, she pushes her chair back, and the scraping against the floor makes my teeth clench.
“Come on then, you little bastard.” She stomps out of the room, and I follow her.
The bedroom she leads me into is simple but pretty with a large bed in the center.
“Ah look at that, the marital bed.” I pat the sheets. “I bet you still have sex with your husband, don’t you?”
“You’re getting very close to the edge of what I’ll tolerate, young man.”
The young man remark cracks me up and I laugh.
She stares at me for a long beat and shakes her head. Is that pity in her gaze? For me ? How dare she. The sad, worried look she considers me with makes the scary new beast inside me roar more.
She pulls open a drawer and takes out a box.
Opening it, she shows me the contents. “Some of the shiniest stuff is only costume. The real jewelry is in this drawer.” She pulls open a drawer underneath the main compartment.
I don’t know anything about jewelry. I’d have thought the first layer was more expensive, but I must trust she won’t screw me over. If she does, I’ll fuck her life up.
She sorts through it and hands me two pieces. “This ring is from Saudi Arabia. Twenty-two carat gold, sapphires, and diamonds. It’s worth a lot. It has a very thick band, see, and twenty-two carat gold is expensive. You could pawn this for around three thousand dollars in America.”
Next is a bangle. It’s very thick with ornate markings on it. “This is the same gold. It’s worth about five thousand dollars; that’s what they told me at the will reading. So that and the ring almost gets you to ten thousand dollars. That should give you a few months”
I scoff, “No, it won’t. Not for two of us.”
She grits her teeth, but she holds up a pair of old-lady earrings. The kind that hang like chandeliers and sparkle with many gems. “Diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, from Graff. They’re worth around fifteen thousand dollars. These three items together will give you enough money to look after you and your mamma for a couple of years. That’s it, Dimitri.” She places her hands on her hips.
I pocket them all and look at the rest of the jewelry. There’s still a fuck-ton more.
“The thing about sinning, Dimitri, is knowing when to stop,” she says quietly. “You can take those, and I can probably ensure my husband never finds out. You take too much, and he finds out … then you’re entering the realm of unintended consequences.”
“Is that the realm you’re in now?” I ask.
She nods. “Absolutely.”
“Because you didn’t know when to stop sinning?”
“Yes.”
“I want one more sin,” I say.
She sighs, and her fingers brush over the items.
“No. Not them.”
She looks at me, and the air between us grows heavy. Her cheeks flush. “I don’t know what you’re alluding to, but my husband will be back any moment, and you’re a child, so whatever it is, the answer is no.”
“I just want to see your tits,” I say.
She gasps. “No. Get lost, you bastardo .”
“Just a look. What does that hurt?”
She bites her lip, and I stroke the letters in my pocket. Angrily, she pulls up her top, lifting her sweat-stained bra. Her heavy breasts flop out.
I stare at them and enjoy her humiliation and my power in this moment.
I enjoy it far too much.
Like Bettina says, the thing about sinning is knowing when to stop. So I make another vow. I’ll control this new beast inside me and keep it on a tight leash. I’ll control the beast, not the other way around.
I smirk at Bettina. “Thanks, but they’re not that impressive.”
What do I know? They’re the only real ones I’ve seen.
“Get out,” she screeches.
I shrug. “Thanks for the jewels.”
“You’re very not welcome. Don’t darken my fucking door again.”
I salute her and saunter out of the room.
When I get home, I hide the jewels inside a pair of socks and stuff them in the middle of my case.
The next day, we leave for America. Me and the new beast inside me.