Episode 99 | Nobody's hallway

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Catherine had declared the hallway of her apartment 'Nobody's Land' -- like most of the public spaces in Russia. Recalling Paris, and how there had always been fresh flowers adorning a table at the elegant entryway of the building on the Rue de Furstemberg, on her first week in St. Petersburg she had bought a bouquet of champagne roses, that she thought would suit the damask in tones of gold and bronze on the walls. Coming back from lunch, she artfully arranged them -- one among the classical refinements she had learned from Celeste -- on the table standing alone under a dimly lit lamp on the corner. The table was stained and unstable, if still classy and solid, and the lampshade was dusty and charmingly torn -- but her flowers had instantly enlivened the ambient, poising as an antidote to the decaying elegance. When leaving for tea, later in the afternoon, she found they had been stolen already, together with the little crystal vase acquired at the Udelnaya flea market. In the evening, she placed back the dried flowers and the plastic vase she had trashed earlier, wondering if they could have been dear to any of her neighbors.

Just then did she really notice how worn the carpet at the stairs landing was, to later find it had been placed there to hide a horrendously executed repair that had damaged the wooden floor, permanently. Nobody seemed to care about the peeling wallpaper, the stained mirror, the molded ceiling where rain had once leaked, the crannied marble of the doorposts -- all was considered historical, it seemed. Termites had been tenants in that building longer than any other people, she hinted, shrugging to those problems under the privilege of being a foreigner.

Standing in the hallway, Catherine would fantasize that Raskolnikov was just waiting to jump on her from behind one of the five other doors -- not to kill her, though, but to beg to appear in one of her novels. Because she was actually aware that the neighbors were spying on her through their peepholes -- she could see and sometimes even hear them being lifted, and the change of light in the holes as eyes were being pressed to them. Not so much scary, she didn't really care about that intrusion, and always thought that, through their provincial curiosity, they might learn a few lessons from her. At least on how to dress elegantly, and move lightly -- for her neighbors walked around in a rhinoceros stampede that made the crystal chandelier in the hall tremble and tinkle. 

In that hallway, that often smelled to boiled eggs and coarse tobacco, she realized the heated dialogue with Laurent was a scene many of her neighbors were watching from behind their doors. She pictured them in old underwear or pajamas, picking their teeth or noses, unable to understand more than just a few words -- if any of them spoke French, she hadn't come across him or her yet. While she was ready to go to theater herself -- wearing the new Prada black gown she had bought that very morning --, they were enjoying their homely stage with her.

Upon identifying Laurent's name on the mobile's screen, she had asked Vladimir to fetch her stole, though she was comfortable enough. Catherine had been waiting for her son to make contact, for she knew it would be worse to push him when he was in one of his hurtful moods. She also knew she should better no longer avoid talking to him. She picked the call at Laurent's second try, entertaining hope that they wouldn't fight -- but they had seriously argued, and the end of their conversation couldn't have been more melancholic.

"Laurent? Listen to me... Laurent!" It seemed like he had not only hang up, but typically, also disconnected his phone. She had heard a shower being turned on in the back of their conversation, and it was very probable that her son was not alone. Was he, ever?

"Your son is not a child, Katerina." She startled, hearing Vlad's comment immediately after Laurent had hang up. "He is old." Her young lover was at the mirror, grooming himself -- or pretending to, since the light in the hallway was so dim and on the tainted surface, images were barely visible.

"Old? He is older than you, Vlad, but not so much older, I should say..." She giggled.

"Old enough, Katerina, that's what I want to say. You should not treat him like a child. You are justifying his very bad behavior." He was at the mirror trying to look busy and self-important, as if he hadn't been there plainly waiting for her. And showing off his costume, too, because he knew she liked it when he dressed more formally.

"Not that again, Vlad!" She had chosen and bought his new clothes, and they fitted him perfectly. It was much better than the ragged jeans and the stained leather jacket he used to wear trying to look modern and European. Still, wearing formal clothes as if they were a plaster cast, Vladimir's unlikely elegance was, at best, that of a Russian mafioso. 

"There is another case of pederasty in the newspapers today. Another dirty priest." He sounded awfully serious and offended. Maybe it was his way of protesting, when she had fooled him about the coat, and kept him waiting for so long.

"And how does that relate to my son?" Catherine asked, with a sigh. Vlad's reasoning being like quicksand, she knew she was going to be dragged into the darkest ages of prejudice. 

"The priest was an homosexual molesting little boys. You are not going to defend pederasty, Katerina, are you?"

"Of course not!" She hadn't taken her earring off, and after having pressed it against the screen of her mobile phone for so many minutes, she had a headache, making her feel defeated before the combat had even started. "Pederasty is a crime! And those priests are sick, and they need treatment. But do you realize you didn't mention them in your first sentence as homosexuals? The problem here is not their homosexuality, but their pederasty."

"Katerina! Don't try to fool me! They molested little boys, not little girls! They are sick homosexuals." 

She tried to think Vlad's bad French was keeping him from being a more reasonable person, unable to express what he really meant... Or maybe it was actually preventing him from being even worse?

"That is not the problem." She continued. "It's probably because they are claustrophobically closeted, and in a position of social power, that they become abusers. Laurent is gay but he has never abused a boy, because he can live his sexuality openly, in a very healthy and happy manner. Religion, and its hypocritical rigidity, might be much more the problem here, leading to sexual abuse. And of course they abuse little girls, too, if that's their sexual preference. If they could be open about their sexuality, and have partners, those priests might not be abusing boys--"

"Are you talking about openly gay priests?" Vladimir grunted, either emphasizing his opinion, or from having removed one of the many blackhead that dotted his face. "That we should accept gay priests? And that they could have partners? Gay married priests? That's so sick! You must be crazy, Katerina!" He sneered.

"I know. I am crazy. Happily crazy!" They had been shopping that morning, and she had spent a small fortune. Designer clothes in Russia were much more expensive than in Paris, but she wouldn't deprive herself. Buying fashion was also a way to honor Celeste's inheritance, that she was now living on, and instead investing all her royalties and paychecks. "Otherwise, life would be so boring, and I, myself, so tedious! Don't you think so, darling? And you, Vlad? Don't you think you might be gay? You can't stop talking about my son, and specially about the fact that he is gay. Maybe you are falling for my handsome son--"

"You are crazy indeed, woman." He glanced sideways at her from the mirror, where his reflection appeared horribly distorted. "Of course I am not gay! I am a very healthy person! I don't desire little boys. And how can you be so sure about your son? I mean, how do you know he has never abused little boys? It's very common among gays, you see... Maybe you are hiding a criminal, and defending him!" Vlad was left nearly breathless by his impassioned opinions.

"Laurent, a criminal! That's grotesque and obtuse, and so rude of you, Vlad! I shall always defend my son, of course, whenever it's appropriate to defend him." Such an irony, she thought, when currently he keeps accusing me. "And I will always defend him against himself, that is the most important, you see." She murmured the last sentence, wanting to keep it to herself, but not willing to silence it. "And he always seems to need it..." 

"See, Katerina, even you agree with me that you need to defend your son against himself."

"Just like I should defend you from yourself, Vlad..." If only I cared for you like I care for my son, she thought. "I should defend you from your monstrously antiquated prejudices, for instance. Vlad, you are so similar to Laurent, more than you'd like to admit! I know you have been dating older women, almost exclusively. Don't you think you might be seeking your mother in them?" And am I not impersonating your mother right now, she wondered. "Just like Laurent is seeking his father in all the men he dates. The boy he loved most was Italian, like his father... and--" Catherine decide to quit talking about Laurent, realizing she was just giving more ammunition to her lover.

"Then he's been seeking a lot, Katerina!" Vlad grimaced, and his voice was leaking irony. "I read on the internet that in his exhibition are displayed the portraits of 45 of his ex-lovers... Do you think that is normal, Katerina?"

Naturally, she knew that already. Instead of being the least horrified, Catherine thought she should have kept a record of all the lovers Laurent had mentioned to her -- at least as a list for male character's names. She was pretty sure they were a couple of hundred at least, and not just forty five. When everybody thought Laurent was making up and showing off, she actually knew her son was being quite modest and discreet.

"Laurent has a big heart." She hesitated, since she wanted to mention another big organ her son had, just to shock Vladimir. "A big broken heart. And the wounds have made his heart even bigger, by cracking it open... Laurent's heart is constantly bleeding, continuously swelling..." She loved the image of men being swollen by Laurent's big heart, and that when they were ejected off it, or simply dumped, they came out bleeding like him. But it was not the same sort of blood she seemed to find everywhere in Russia, where all stories ended or began with assassination; Laurent's was the tragically romantic blood of a brokenhearted heartbreaker. "Maybe I should break your heart, Vlad." It had just occurred to her. "And you know why? Because it would grow a bit larger, and perhaps more compassionate too, so that more people would fit in it. Unless you are a coward, and decide to protect yourself by shrinking it. But I don't think you are a coward. Nor do I think you love me enough to be heartbroken if we'd split."

From inside one of the apartments, a cat screeched, and from another, an alarm clock had started. She had heard it before, and knew it could go on for hours, if the tenant had left. She also noticed that a few more pieces from the crystal chandelier were missing. Someone was either selling them or taking them to repair their own.

Vlad finally left the mirror, and took two heavy steps in her direction, menacingly. "Of course I'm not a coward, Katerina! And of course I love you! But don't try to break my heart... or I'll break your legs!" His whole body tensed, as he hissed those last words. She saw saliva flying from his mouth, and she backed a little, giving the wrong impression that she feared him.

He must be speaking like his father now, Catherine guessed. He probably would like to be spanking like him, too -- Vladimir had clutched his fist and seemed to make an effort to avoid hitting her. 

But she wasn't afraid. Again, she wondered what kind of abuses Vladimir must have suffered from his father. He had actually started their conversation by mentioning little boys being abused. Looking at Vladimir, for the first time she realized her tormented lover would make a wonderful and practical research field on domestic violence, and Catherine started thinking she should consider that as one of the main themes for her next novel. 

Otherwise, having a young lover was so tedious, Catherine thought. Because she had teased him about being gay and a coward, he would probably be more passionate at love making that evening, as they'd come back from theater and dinner. Just to prove to himself he was a real macho. It was that easy to arouse him. 

And he would also try to be romantic, to prove that he loved her. No flowers nor any presents, since Vlad was always penniless -- and she have to ask herself seriously one day if poor men were a fetish she cultivated, unconsciously. He would probably deliver another poem overflowing with powerfully evocative words, written within a few minutes, at the dozens if he wanted to. Obviously, the poem would be in Russian, and when he'd try to translate it into French  Vlad would be utterly frustrated, and maybe again find some motivation to go back to the University to study French. She surely enjoyed having the young man in her bed, but she'd like to have him again among her students rank, too. Trying to communicate with her would enable him to finally communicate with everyone else in France, Catherine pondered, and she was just trying to act like a bait to the big lazy fish boy.

It was that easy to manipulate men -- a talent that was innate to her as much as it had been refined and perfected with Celeste's practical lessons at home.

"We can go now. I hate being late." On saying those words, Catherine shivered, for they sounded awfully like her mother's.

"Well, it's not my fault if we are late." His outrage made him drool. "And I know, again you will defend and protect your son. Let's go." He snatched her coat from the arm of the single, rickety chair that stood in the hallway, where he had left it hanging. "I'm tired of waiting!"

Watching Vladimir fleeing down the steps, Catherine wondered if he was still feeling embarrassed.

That morning, she had surprised him on her computer, looking at the picture of a naked, well hung man.

"Oh, I'm sorry if I'm intruding!" She giggled at the vision of the beautifully well defined torso and powerful thighs that reminded her of the Riace bronzes -- though, unlike them, the depicted young man boasted an impressive erection.

"It's not what you think!" Her lover had retorted swiftly, openly ashamed, startling at her presence by his side.

"Of course not!" She retorted, amused. She had dated young men before, and a couple of them had declared themselves bisexuals. Vlad wouldn't state anything so contemporary and defiant about himself, but still, she wouldn't be surprised if, like other men his age, he was experimenting with his sexuality. "That's a boner in the picture, that's all. It can be a metaphorical image, I guess! It's not porn, is it?"

"Do you think it's porn, Katerina?" Vladimir inquired, and by his triumphant tone, Catherine knew she had been caught in a trap. "Well... supposedly, this is art!" He twisted his mouth with disgust. "Your son's art, Katerina! How about that?"

And though they had engaged in yet another discussion about Laurent, his sexuality and  his 'degenerate art', in her lover's own terms, Catherine wondered whether the young man's fixation on her son wasn't down to sexual attraction, like her boyfriend so vehemently insisted in denying.

So -- would Laurent's revenge come that way, she wondered? Hooking her Russian lover across the oceans? The explicit nudity of his paintings were all over the internet now, though she hadn't checked them herself.

But the possibility of Laurent taking revenge on her did not exist. 

Since he couldn't possibly know that, just once, she had stolen a guy from him. It was more like she had borrowed him -- it had been a one night affair, tormented and fiery and redemptive. She hadn't foreseen it, unthinkable as it was that she should compete with her son for the love of men. 

Laurent couldn't possibly know -- he shouldn't know, and she dismissed those memories with a shiver, her heart shattering at the simple thought that he could one day find it out.

this is the conclusion of

First Trasmission | The Heart

 Second Transmission | The Body
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Author's note: having been imported from a former version of the story, some of the comments below are dated previous to this post. Once the plot has not been altered, just the pagination, I am keeping them since they are very dear and precious to me.

Episode 96 | Motherless mother

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Catherine felt her heart sink, when with one last beep her mobile shut off.

She knew exactly how oversensitive her child was – from a small boy, Laurent was feeling hurt and crying at the smallest things. When he was a three or four years old child, she had asked Carlo to kill a spider, and the boy had cried in desperation as the creature was chased and smashed in a corner of the chalet. And then, begged his father to promote a proper burial for the torn insect. Catherine had been dumbfounded. He would either avert his eyes or sob, when fishes were being brought onto the beach by the canoes that had been out fishing. He would have nightmares if he saw the fishes flouncing and struggling in the nets or baskets, helplessly gasping for air. Of course, he wouldn't eat them, nor anything that resembled an animal. He had been that kind of adolescent passing around petitions to save the whales and panda bears. Lately, Laurent's nonsense had found justification in Buddhist practices of equanimity, that proposed all beings were equal -- to Catherine's exasperation. But she couldn't do much, since mother and son hadn't cohabited for more than a decade. 

Just like Carlo, from early childhood she had realized Laurent had many artistic talents – but Catherine believed in artists being determined, disciplined and obsessive to achieve success, and those were the values she had wanted to instill in Laurent – while Carlo, soft by nature, had only encouraged Laurent’s sensitive and intuitive qualities. 

She believed that artists had to skilfully learn how to be strong and thick-skinned, more than just naturally develop their sensibility. She had been stupefied that, instead of hard work and dedication, a single shot of luck had finally launched Carlo’s career, a career he had almost given up along the years, simply because he had always lacked self-confidence and determination. Being a disciplined hard worker herself -- even in Russia, she was often being called 'workaholic', an awful word she despised --, she had not quite understood how nor why Carlo's weakness and cowardice should be rewarded. And she feared that his effortless success had had the wrong kind of impact on Laurent’s personality.

Observing her teenager son, she feared the damage had already happened. Despite the years away from Carlo, Laurent had consolidated his melancholy into an almost permanent depressive state, with that susceptibility she considered a flaw at his core. Catherine could imagine him bursting into angry tears (like too often, when he was a child and a teenager) at the sudden end of their call, melodramatically wandering around the hotel room in Vice City, with his shoulders bent, his whole body shaken by sobs, punching and throwing things, and with screams protesting against the injustice of life.

But Laurent -- feeling that the world conspired against him -- himself was so unjust with her. His oversensitivity had the downside of making him insecure – and all their common life, mother and son had struggled with Laurent’s inclination for emotional dependency, and Catherine’s intent to uproot it.

Catherine had herself endured and survived Celeste who, from an early age, taught her daughter to avoid calling her 'mother'. Celeste had disliked and at all occasions evaded being seen with Catherine when she was a little girl -- but as she grew up and became a lovely, attractive teenager, Celeste loved to be mistaken for Catherine’s sister. 

Catherine had often felt like a motherless child, being taken care either by nannies or the maids in the Parisian apartment, many of them immigrants who captivated and dumbfounded her with their foreign habits and their not the least accurate French.

Opposed to Celeste, who had never called Catherine 'daughter', she had always addressed Laurent with tenderness -- 'my son', 'my dear', 'darling'. But Laurent, of course, took it for granted, unable to recognize her love expressed in words, that were so meaningful to her. She had never heard any of them coming from her own mother. And he had always demanded, even begged for more from her. 

Realizing that, Catherine had permanently tried to motivate the opposite attitude in her son – often leaving Laurent to himself so that he could make his own decisions and grow out of his sick dependency, that Carlo had disastrously encouraged. Laurent’s training was short-lived, though, because only two years after Carlo had left, at fifteen years old Laurent had met Angelo and gladly handed the other boy power over him.

Catherine had preferred to risk being taken for a distant, careless mother – rather than play the role of the overprotective parent who would hinder her son’s emotional growth into a healthy maturity.

But at the thought that, probably, instead of abandoning himself to anger and despair, Laurent might have engaged in sex with the guy – or guys – he had mentioned that was – were – in his hotel room, a smile brightened Catherine’s face.

*****

The hungry termites had transformed the apartment into an eighteenth century precursor of the lofts, consisting of one long room that integrated the office and library, the tea and conversation rooms, the living room and the dining room, once the wooden panels between them had been removed. Only the bedroom and the bathroom had still kept some privacy. The windows giving to the Neva river conferred the rhythm and unity to the ambients. There was no kitchen, what suited Catherine perfectly -- she would have eaten out every day anyways, and she was generously paying and elder neighbor to bring her le petit déjeneur. 

"You smell delicious, Katerina..." Upon seeing his lover standing pensively by the dining table, quiet and immobile, looking distant, her head charmingly tilted as if she was trying to hear a faint song, Vlad had purposely put on his socks to silently sneak along the squeaking floor. He tiptoed on the antique rugs -- a single one of them worth more than all his possessions --, and when he was just a dozen steps away from Catherine, knowing the wood boards on the living room were tremendously noisy, he took impulse to glide swiftly and then jumped on her from behind, grabbing the startled woman by the waist. Catherine had an impossibly beautiful waistline that made the curves of her buttocks and breasts stand like the creations of a master sculptor -- that desirable when she was so old already, and Vlad could only imagine what wonders they would have been when she was young. Mistaking her inner smile for an approval of his assault, he squeezed her tight against his naked torso, in a haste starting to undress her, to the urgency of his hard-on.

"Not now, Vlad." She said coldly, but not moving apart an inch. Because her blasé reaction hadn't stopped him, Catherine had to slap his intrusive hand and push him away harder than she normally would like to, almost losing her balance -- and her elegance. Of all her recent lovers, Vladimir was distinctly the one to make her lose the temper the more often. "You don't smell so delicious, yourself." The scent of vodka that permanently tinged his outbreath and sweat often disgusted her, and until she had drank something herself, it was rather nauseating.

He sucked in a breath, unable to find the words to retort, so big was his surprise -- yet smaller than the rejection he immediately felt. "Your bad son spoiled your morning humor, Katerina?" He said, sarcastically and still breathless.

"There is nothing bad about Laurent, Vlad. Stop picking on my son!" She clapped her hands to drop the subject.

"Yes there is. He is a sinner. Next time I want to talk to him!"

"My son, a sinner? He is not even religious!" Catherine braced herself for yet another medieval duel with Vladimir. "How can he be a sinner?"

"You know very well, Catherine. Sleeping with other men is so wrong. That’s a sin."  

Her young lover was so fixated in Laurent that she sometimes wondered if, in some wicked and devious way, he hadn't already fallen in love for her son and was struggling with feelings he rejected himself. She had spotted his erection, that he almost proudly displayed under his old fashioned underwear, and instead of attributing the cause to herself, thought Vlad was clearly aroused at the subject of Laurent's sexuality.

"Are you aware that 'sin' is a word that cannot be translated into every language, since in several of them there is no equivalent for it? Sin is a concept that doesn't exist in several cultures, Vlad! Sin doesn't exist everywhere on this planet. Sin is not universal, Vlad!" She glanced at him, reproachfully. She thought men who wore underwear and socks always looked ridiculous -- and she knew Laurent loathed it, too. Especially Vlad, who was wearing black socks and white underwear. She could have laughed at him, but she had realized the young man was having a hard time dealing with his imperious morning lust, and with her dismissal of it.

"Only because these cultures must be a sin in themselves, altogether! Their core is sin, Catherine. Just like some people who are so sinful won't even realize how deep plunged into it they are..." Instead of an statement, it sounded to Catherine that Vlad had posed a question. But she knew it was due to his difficulties with the French language. She didn't feel confident herself to speak Russian, though she could read it perfectly, and was almost thankful that the young man at least bothered trying to speak to her in French. "You will never cure your son if you keep defending him from his… faults, if the word sin is the problem here!"

Cure? What reply was there to that? Deliberately, Catherine decided to lose her patience with her stubborn companion. At what age do young people grow up and leave the idiotic arrogance of adolescence behind?, she thought, and decided to give Vlad a push. 

"Don’t you think that your father beating you and your stepmother is much worse a fault, Vlad?" She had found out that hideous detail about Vlad’s household by chance, told as gossip by a colleague teacher, who wanted to see Vlad thrown out of her bed to get into it himself. She hadn't talked openly about that yet with Vlad, but she had learned it had been his main reason to leave the village of his birthplace. "And the fact that he cheats on her, too?"

Vladimir gulped and grew pale, or even more pale than his beautiful white marble complexion already was. He had been stroking his goatee with one hand and the tip of his hard-on with the other -- and he froze. 

"Leave my family out of this, Katerina!" He stomped a foot. "My father sleeping with other women is a natural weakness from men." He went on, hissing, his eyebrows arching towards the top of his forehead, his eyes burning like green coals. "And he only beats her when he is too drunk."

"But that’s gasthly!" Catherine moaned. "Natural weakness? And how 'weak' are you Vlad?" She did not wait for his answer. "He only beats her when he is 'too drunk'?! From the way that you keep drinking yourself... Am I being warned?" From the perplexed look on his face, Catherine knew he had lost the thread of her reasoning. "Your arguments are medieval, Vladimir! How can you accept that? You should be ashamed of yourself!" She then turned her back on him, since he had resumed stroking his chin and the erect organ, and she could no longer stand neither.

Vlad thought she was teasing him further, turning her buttocks to him, their deliciously soft curves outlined under her tar black dress -- since Edoardo's death Catherine had decided to wear only black, since it suited her best than all other colors -- gently swaying as she shifted from one high heel to the other. "Nobody is perfect, Katerina!" 

Upon seeing him retreating so defensively, just then did she ponder that Vlad's need to constantly reinforce his masculinity and his aggressiveness must have been side effects from his helplessness and frustration at his brutish father's abuses. She was disappointed with herself. Had her lover been a character in one of her books, she would have read him better, already. And how far would those maltreats have gone, she wondered, at what age had they started and how long would they have lasted, to have made Vlad so grossly homophobic?

"Still, I think you could – and should -- do better than that, Vlad. Especially if you want to emigrate." Catherine did appreciate his writings, so poetically elusive, and she was agitating what she considered his best novel to be properly translated and published in France. That could be a lengthy process, however, and she did not expect them to be still together as a couple by the end of it. Vlad would have the autograph’s night in Paris he dreamed of; she would have been responsible for making it happen, and that’s all that actually mattered -- not whether she would be there with him or not. Since her investigations about the Rostoff family had just begun, she wasn't planning to return to France any time soon, while Vlad was in a hurry to leave Russia.

"I certainly do better than other people I know. Or even than people you know, for that matter, Katerina." With a gesture towards the dead mobile phone lying over Catherine’s writing desk, he seemed to imply he was closing the circle and again talking about Laurent.

"If you think so, Vlad." That very moment, Catherine simply gave up debating with her lover, for the rest of the morning.

It was a pity that, despite being so lyrical in his writings, he could be such a moron in the everyday life. But at least he also enjoyed drinking, and had taken to himself the task of keeping the apartment she had rented in St. Petersburg stocked with liquor – that he would go out to buy with her money, of course.

Catherine poured herself some wine -- French, for sure, and yet not as good as she would have preferred. She had started wondering whether Vlad bought cheaper liquor to keep the rest of the money to himself, or if he really had no sophistication at all, deeply rooted still in his peasant origins that made him have quite coarse tastes. 

With her glass full, she sat to read what the translator had delivered on the documents she had found about the Rostoffs. And she smiled silently, like she had before the argument with Vlad had started. She had been defending Laurent, when her son had accused her their whole conversation through. She wondered if Laurent would have defended her against accusations coming from one of his lovers -- because she was certain that Celeste, her mother, would never have. 

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Episode 95 | Why, Catherine?

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nudity

"Oh, Katerina, please let me sleep..." Vlad grunted from bed. Catherine had let him sleep through her not so silent process of getting dressed and applying makeup and perfume, but now she demanded his help.

"Then you shouldn't have messed with my mobile!" Typical as it was for the youthful, Vlad enjoyed playing with technology when he was bored, and had changed not just the ringtone to the kitsch "La Cumparsita" but several other configurations of her mobile, which Catherine tended to regard as mysteriously untouchable. "I want to call my son, Vlad. Now! How do I do it?"

"You just have to press the key where I've stored his phone number, Katerina... Try 1..." The young man groaned, as Catherine walked over to the living room, her high heels hitting the wooden floor intentionally hard like spikes, reverberating against the dark wood panels that covered the bottom half of the walls, yet being softened by the top half, upholstered in a golden and brown damask that had seen nobler days. The floor, alternating patterns of squares and lines between brown and yellow woods, was uneven, and some of the furniture trembled as she walked past -- the sconces fluttered like withered flowers about to fall, as the crystal cabinet emitted a curiously delicate tinkling symphony. 

Catherine dialed 1, and Vlad's mobile started ringing from inside his backpack.

"Then your son must be number 2, Katerina!" Vlad was buckling with silent laughter underneath the sheets. "Please let me sleep..." He moaned. Catherine had purposefully left wide open the curtains that divided the bedroom and the living room, doubting the young man would get up from the bed to close them. When she first inspected the apartment, the estate agent had informed her those panels had been removed due to termites, but they would soon be replaced, and the curtains dividing the rooms were temporary. To Catherine, it seemed the damaged panels could have been removed a century or two ago, since the velvet curtains looked a hundred years old at least -- all very temporary still, depending on the point of view. She didn't care, really, once the apartment was well located and properly furnished with exquisite furniture that had belonged to decayed nobles. She intended to use the apartment on her own, and would only close the curtains when she had visitors -- though, somehow, that awkward curtain scheme reminded her of the Île du Blanchomme, and that was a part of her life she simply wished to forsake.

"Don't you always say French sounds like a beautiful lullaby?" She paced a little more, enjoying the sound of her own steps, in the known that they would be enough to keep her young lover awake. Maybe even make him lose his temper, and then he would make a scene and leave. "I hope you can lure yourself into sleep all through my conversation with Laurent!" She challenged him.

But Catherine wasn't in the mood for arguing about the childish joke her young lover had set up on her mobile, putting Laurent in second place. Otherwise, she might have just sent him home, to sleep at the horrible little old apartment without heating nor running water he shared with three other young writers, all very talented -- the new Gogol, the new Tolstoy and the new Chekov -- and equally penniless. But she actually pitied Vladimir -- the new Dostoyevsky --, helplessly struggling in an oppressive scenery of no opportunities, and she wanted to help him -- and the rest of the boys, too -- as much as she could.

She forgot him the next moment, though, and was so exultant when the call did get through, and Laurent's full, silky voice sounded on the other side.

*****

"Catherine!" Upon seeing my mother's name on the screen, I had answered the telephone straight away. She might interpret that prompt answer as me being anxious to talk to her -- and wasn't I? -, an strategy that would reassure her that everything was fine on her front. Since she had called, she was expecting to be the one in control. I guessed if I did not attack her right at the start, she might lower her defenses, becoming more open to my questioning.

"Bonjour, chéri! How are you today?"

"I'm alright, Catherine..." I murmured. Maybe I should go into the bathroom for privacy?

"Why are you whispering, dear? Where are you? You're not in another of those useless meditation retreats, are you?" She snorted, demonstrating her dissatisfaction at the idea. "Can we talk or should I try it again later?" When, still speaking low, I told her I was in my hotel room, she immediately guessed, "So you're not alone, are you? Who is he?"

"It's ok, Catherine. We can talk. We have to talk!'"

Did I hear my mother gulp as I prompted her? Anyway, she was completely silent, and that meant she wasn't facilitating things for me. She was already defensive.

"Why, Catherine?" My voice broke as anger and sadness clashed in me.

"Just because, Laurent." She had answered, still cheerfully. "Of course I cannot give a more appropriate answer to your question, since I don't know what it refers to. You haven't regressed to that age, after having spoken to Carlo, when you were asking 'why' all the time, have you?"

My childhood. It struck me how I had adored Catherine. Suddenly, I felt touched about how I had struggled for her attention and approval. How I had worshiped her and fought for her love, battling against things that I had barely comprehended -- letters and books. Things I would later bring into my own life in an effort to share my mother's same planet. A fictional planet, it seemed, full of fantasies for her readers -- while lies had been reserved mostly for me.

All the while, she had been cheating on me, lying to me, hiding my own story from me. Pretty much what Gaston, with his second family, had done to Marie Heléne and Armand -- and again, I felt connected to my uncle. 

Above all, it seemed an unjust pay off to my desperate, obedient adoration for Catherine all through life.

"Why? Why have you hidden my family from me, Catherine? Actually, why have you deprived me from having a family?"

"Are you again talking about Carlo and the reasons why he left us, Laurent?"

"That too, Catherine. But we will come to it later. I'm talking about my uncle!"

"Uncle!" Catherine gasped. "And you are talking about..." The curiosity in her voice ringed thoroughly fake.

"Armand! Who else?" 

"That!" She snorted again, emphasizing her misprize. "He is just your half-uncle."

"Don't play with words, Catherine. Not today, not with me -- not any longer! And what about Gaston? Why have you kept me from meeting him?"

In the brief silence that followed, I could hear Catherine's high heels echoing as she paced her apartment in St. Petersburg -- and that had been the sound setting the rhythm of our conversations for the past decade. Catherine had always been wearing them, as far as I could remember -- at least, since we had reunited in France, when I was eight years old. In her youth, my mother had been famed for her daring and elegant way of walking. Mr. Truffaut had wanted to invite her as an extra on his famous sequence in 'The man who loved women', but in 1977 she had been abroad, on her involuntary exile.

"I did not, Laurent. Your grandmother did. Carlo must have told you. She held us in Punaouilo." She gulped, and her nervousness was not insincere. She dreaded any mention of her tropical exile, as if she could be sent back anytime. "All the while, I wanted to go back to France. Taking you with me, of course!"

"That's not what I mean, Catherine." And that was not what she had done, leaving me behind when finally had had the opportunity to flee. But those were old wounds, and I wanted to concentrate on the most recent. "You were lying to me, when I asked about your father... my grandfather... Gaston..."

"I never lied to you, Laurent. I said you did not have a grandfather, and you didn't. To the same extent that I did not have a father, do you understand that?" She sighed. "Because you were not legally a De Montbelle, and Gaston would never have recognized you, just like he wasn't willing to recognize me... What else should I have told a child? How could I have explained legal problems to you? There are no such meanders to a child, Laurent. Just rejection, believe me. And after all, that's the reason why your grandmother kept us in Punaouilo. She didn't want me to fight for my rights." Or what I have always imagined to be my rights, Catherine thought, but it was too early to talk about that to her son. "She thought I was going to hinder her relationship with Gaston by taking him to court, and she kept me away until he was already in his deathbed, completely senile."

"Carlo has explained that to me, Catherine." Either it was the final truth, or another lie they had put up together. "Still, you lied to me! You used to say my grandfather was dead, when Gaston was still alive..."

"I don't think so, Laurent." She paused. "No, I didn't. I remember it clearly. I only gave you that answer when we were in France, already. And by then, Gaston was dead indeed." Again, what she said confirmed Carlo's retelling of the story. "Are you calling me a liar, Laurent?"

"Didn't you lie to me about my birth? And how you and Carlo had met in Punaouilo and--" I now moved through my own story like in a maze, so many walls to dumbfound me having been added too recently, "Why did you hide the Île du Blanchomme and my uncle Armand from me, Catherine? Or were you actually hiding me from the De Montbelle family?" 

"I did not hide you from Gaston -- your grandmother did! And I did not hide you from Armand. He is perfectly aware of your existence, Laurent. Just like he was about mine, after he and his mother discovered about Gaston's double life..." Her breath had become heavy, and I realized Catherine, having never cultivated equanimity, could not talk about the past with detachment like Carlo had. "And yet he never tried to contact me, are you aware of that, too? Actually, what did Carlo tell you?"

I tried to summarize the first part of my conversation with Carlo, our tropical years and my parents' torrid affair on the Île du Blanchomme. 

I might have been talking too loud, since I had already grown completely oblivious of Gabriel, but when I checked he remained sound asleep. Gabriel's working routine made him very tired, and I always tried to preserve his sleep. I was just glad the carpet on the hotel room must have muffled my barefoot steps, and my voice too.

"I hope you'll understand the reason why I've hidden the De Montbelle family from you. And please don't refer to Armand as your uncle, as if he was family, as if he was..." She hesitated, "dear to you! I'll repeat it... he has always been aware of your existence, and he has never tried to contact you, chéri... Why should I let you suffer from his disdain, when I know exactly how appalling it feels, Laurent? I did not simply lie to you. I have protected you from his scorn!"

"How can you say that, Catherine? How can you shrink my family and say it was for my own sake?"

"Listen to yourself, Laurent! You think I am trying to hurt you. Your own mother! But I was protecting you, don't you see? You are thirty three years old... and for all this time, though aware of your existence, I repeat, Armand has never tried to contact you. That's what is breaking your heart, Laurent, and that's what I've always tried my best to avoid."

It was hard for me to understand Catherine's feelings on that matter. Almost impossible, I should say, since I had learned about Armand just a few days ago. And she had lived under his shadow for fifty eight years now, always comparing herself to him -- and losing, as from birth she had been destined to. How could I understand how being a bastard, an illegitimate child had affected her? She had not been recognized by her father, and never accepted by her brother -- and for thirty three years, on top of that, Armand had ignored me, too, increasing her revolt and suffering. At that point, I still didn't get any of that, and I couldn't sympathize with Catherine.

"You should have given me the choice to decide for myself, Catherine."

"Decide on what? Now that you have the chance to do something about this matter, you're doing it all wrong! You're not begging for that man's attention! I forbid you, Laurent! We only talk to him through lawyers! Do you understand me?" She had raised her voice at me, but at the same time, the sound of her high heels had stopped. She was no longer pacing, frozen in place -- and was that place her own past?

"That's your story with Armand, Catherine." I retorted, unmoved by her suffering. "It's not mine. I want a fresh start with him... I don't care about the money... It's all about the money for you, isn't it, Catherine? This whole mess--"

"It was never about the money for me, Laurent."

"How can you say that, Catherine? Did Carlo lie when he said you've taken Armand to court? Oh, no, even before that, Celeste was already disputing the money--"

"And your grandmother won, to a great extent! It was a just decision. Armand has not even tried to question it further, did you know that? She did help Gaston in making considerable profit and increasing the De Montbelle fortune, and that has been proved. Your grandmother was very influential in the social net of businessmen and politicians she built around herself, and Gaston knew how to take advantage of it. They were a good match, actually." Her voice caught. "And you've benefited from that already, Laurent. Let us be fair. The money you've inherited from Celeste... a lot of it came through Gaston!"

And with that money, I thought, I had built my dream house on a promontory on a secluded beach near Samsara Heights. Pointed towards the Pacific Ocean, from the living room and my bedroom, with windows from floor to ceiling, I could watch storms approaching -- and they came from the direction where Punaouilo used to. A bit like it was happening at that very moment, though that was an emotional storm.

I had never asked about the money's provenance. I had never questioned the humongous amount I had inherited, no matter how implausible it had seemed coming from a theater's ex-diva. My grandmother had always lived so well, her table always topped with imported delicacies and the best wines. Her wardrobe held several unique pieces by the best French couturiers, and more than once we had been contacted by prestigious museums who wanted to house and display her collection. Like if it were a museum itself, she had lived on the Rue de Furstemberg's apartment surrounded by works of art and luxurious furniture -- if Catherine would sell just one or two paintings from Celeste's collection, for instance the Matisse and the Chagall, we would have enough money for the rest of our lives. Catherine and I had agreed about not selling them -- since we had money for the rest of our lives, already. De Montbelle money, apparently. 

A money I had very happily used. And the perspective was there was more money for me, now that I was the last De Montbelle heir.

"It was never about the money, for me." Catherine's voice had again softened. She had just parted one of the curtains in the living room, and seeing the Neva and the array of historical pretty buildings on the other margin always pacified her. Whenever she was entangled with a scene from her book, or legal questions about the Rostoffs, she just had to glance out of the window to remind herself she was living in St. Petersburg, like she had always dreamed. "Maybe Carlo has influenced me more than I would like to admit, and I've learned to live a relatively simple life, ha-ha..." She giggled, as she looked at the room full of antiquities. "It was about dignity for me, Laurent. For us! Do you realize it?"

Catherine's quest for a family name. Though so similar to my own issues, that was something I could not quite grasp yet about my mother -- her quest for acceptance, approval, and validation, sprung from the crib. It was a core hollowness. Even with Gaston dead, the De Montbelle's influence and importance reduced and ever fading -- she still wanted to have his name on her birth certificate. It was about honor, or justice as she understood it.

"I respect that, Catherine." My disposition for fighting had subsided, as I looked out through the windows and realized the sun was already shining. From the heights of my room, the city looked like a game map laid with miniatures, that I could scoop and reorder at my own will. Behind the glasses, it was colorful, silent and unpolluted -- and I was aware it was not. But if I allowed my criticism  to be cooled by the air conditioning from the room, instead of fueled by the scorching sun outdoors, I could appreciate that it was going to be another beautiful day in Vice City. And I had a beautiful man in my bed. After making love, we could go to the park, or maybe drive to a beach and spend the day out of town. It was Gabriel's free day, and I had nothing scheduled myself. My present was actually good, and would be better still if I could let go of my past. But could I? I pressed on. "If I may ask... Is it really justice... or simply revenge?" Or vanity, since I have to confess I was also thrilled about adding De Montbelle to my name, for the family name's prestige and pedigree remained.

"I hear another question behind that one." Being a professional writer, Catherine was very perspicacious with words and their meaning. "Is it just or unjust? Fair or not fair? Good or evil? I'm being judged behind that question, isn't it so, Laurent?"

"I'm not being judgmental, I'm just trying to understand all this mess. You've never loved Carlo, Catherine! Yet, you snatched him from Armand, from your half-brother," I avoided saying 'my uncle', no matter how sweet that sounded to my ears, "who truly loved Carlo.'

"What do you know about Armand, Laurent? What do you think you know about him? Anyway, Carlo did not love Armand. And he wasn't pretty much in love with me, either. The whole mess, as you put it, did not involve as much love as you think. You have never dated anyone since..." Catherine silenced before pronouncing Angelo's name, and it was loving from her part that she was still so careful about my old wounds, "but you remain being a romantic. Maybe some things are not clear for you yet, and you are missing the right perspective here." She took a deed breath before adding, "Carlo did not leave Armand because of me... He left Armand... for you!"

I gasped. I had arrived to the same painful conclusion, but coming from Catherine, it sounded the more cruel. "So... I am responsible for separating Armand and Carlo?" One more perspective on which my father and mother seemed to coincide. And yet, it was awkward to me that, just like my father had implied, I had responsibility in keeping him separated from me for the past twenty years. And now my mother telling me I had changed the life of three adults when I was just a fetus yet.

"You are now thirty three years old, Laurent! It's time you understand your own participation in the lives of others. No matter how central, you are not like the Sun and we are not planets evolving around you." I'm sure she wasn't thinking of the song 'The Sunrise Son' when she stated that. "Our lives did not start with your birth, Laurent. Yet, you changed them forever. Your father gave up a few things, while I gave up others, many others..."

"You've always made that so clear, Catherine!" I exclaimed, and in the back of my mind I thought I had yelled at my father more than once. Never yet, not even once, at my mother. Just like Carlo, I remained being submissive and obedient to her? "I now understand how I have destroyed your life. Should I apologize? But in this process you might have doomed Carlo's life as well, not to mention Armand's--"

"Stop it now!" She interrupted me. "Don't be ridiculous, Laurent! That's so melodramatic, and egocentric of you! You have destroyed nothing. Your father is a well known and wealthy painter, just like he wanted to be. He has achieved his dream, which was making a living from this art. Armand won the Pritzker Prize, to say the least. I have had a different career from what I had pictured for myself, but nonetheless fulfilling. And even the trip to Russia, that should have happened after my vacations in the Indian Ocean, three decades ago..." She paused, as if indicating that those three decades implied my birth and upbringing. "It has finally come true, and here I am, in the company of the new Dostoyevsky!" She laughed gently.

Back in 1974, Catherine had been trying to obtain money from Monsieur de Montbelle to live in Russia. Her purpose was to track down a seventeenth century mystic writer who she believed had been a woman disguised as a monk. And Catherine had been right -- her professor had carried on her research, and gotten all the praise and recognition for that amazing discovery. Without ever mentioning it was Catherine's discovery. For the French academic world, she might have as well drowned in the Indian Ocean.

"There is nothing to blame yourself for, Laurent." Catherine was trying to reassure me by lessening the damage of my birth in her own life, as well as in Carlo's and Armand's. Why did she bother to even try to be motherly sometimes?

"I understand what you're saying, Catherine. You have carried on with your professional lives and everything worked out very fine for all of you... But still--"  I stopped. Suddenly, the thought strike me that, had Carlo chosen to stay with Armand to live their love, I would have been left like Catherine with a blank space in my birth certificate. If she hadn't snatched her half-brother's man, what kind of fatherless life would have I led? In a way, I could now understand why Carlo had always defended Catherine.

Had Catherine been a feminist, she would have carried Carlo's seed in herself and raised a child on her own. But because she had been a bastard child, she had made sure to bring my father along with her -- and since Carlo had been willing to follow her, it hadn't been that hard.

In fact, in a period when feminists were agitating to pass the law that would ban paternity tests in France, Catherine's extremely long, posthumous process of recognition against Gaston de Montbelle led her to be demonized in several intellectual circles -- and that extended torment coming from her peers, that was again exiling her in her own country, had been another reason that influenced her in going to Russia, and that led her to accept the invitation to teach at the Faculty of Philology in St. Petersburg State University, where she would remain for almost five years.

"Let me get this straight!" Catherine snorted. "Are you defending Armand? Who never wanted to have any contact with you? Listen to me again, Laurent. He has been aware of your existence for thirty three years and--"

"No, Catherine." Armand had to be sacrificed, I suddenly understood it, for my own sake. It was bad and sad that it had happened that way, but it could have been worse... for me! Perhaps I owed him apologies? "I'm just considering whether you have done with him what you have done to Carlo... Saying that he shouldn't come looking for me if I did not look for him in the first place... That was so selfish of you, Catherine..." I finally blurted my biggest resentment in the whole story. That she had mercilessly kept my father and I separated

"Mon Dieu! You are going after Armand!" Catherine's strategy of concentrating on Armand actually helped her avoiding the issues involving my father. "You are not going to humiliate yourself before that man, Laurent! Just a few hours in Carlo's company and you are again humble and submissive like him?" She paused, all of a sudden. "Oh no, I can't believe it!"

"You should believe it, Catherine!" I was determined to meet Armand, and my mother's opposition only strengthened my convictions that it was the right thing to do. I was going to look for my uncle Armand, and talk to him. I wanted to locate the Île du Blanchomme, too -- a quick search on the internet had brought no results, none whatsoever -- and visit the place of my conception.

"No, it's not that! I mean, it's not about Armand! Didn't you hear that beep? My mobile is running off its battery... Someone tried to call me the whole morning and now..." 

"Don't lie to me Catherine!" I was closer than ever to yelling at my mother. Instead, I just hissed my dissatisfaction. Such a cheap trick she wanted to use on me, as an excuse to end our discussion.

"Stop accusing me, Laurent. Do you think I want to  interrupt this conversation on purpose? If you want to, we can turn our computers on--"

But Gabriel had just opened his eyes, and was addressing his gorgeous smile at me. Since I wasn't ready yet to let Catherine see my new lover's butt on the cam, and I was very nervous and exasperated already, I simply sighed as the call ended with one last beep from my mother's phone.

And just because Catherine had so vehemently forbidden me, my impulse was to turn on my laptop and try to find my uncle Armand on the internet -- he was well known and it shouldn't be hard to find his architectural firm contacts -- and phone him right away.

But instead, I heard Gabriel asking from the bed "Is everything alright, Lau?" -- and just because I hated that nickname, I decided to punish him with a long, vigorous session of love making and just drown myself into forgetfulness again. 

next episode

Author's note: having been imported from a former version of the story, some of the comments below are dated previous to this post. Once the plot has not been altered, just the pagination, I am keeping them since they are very dear and precious to me.