Episode 96 | Motherless mother

previous episode

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. 

next episode

Episode 03 | I'm here for you

previous episode
or read on Wattpad

We sat still, rather rigidly, and staring at one another, sank into an awkward silence.

Words don't come easily after a gap of twenty years, worsened by the fact that we had not seen nor even spoken nor written to one another during that period.

Looking through the windows did not help us either -- out there, it was the devastating emptiness and amplitude of ocean and sky that could not be abridged. A stunning view, but quite discouraging in our present situation.

"Can I offer you anything to drink, sir?" The handsome barman, 

beautiful like an angel, behaving like an angel, had approached and broken the silence.

"I'm having red wine, grazie." Carlo replied, glancing with interest at Gabriel. In his tar black uniform with a modernized clerical collar, the barman looked misleadingly monastic. 

"Can I bring you another gin tonic, sir?" He smiled, and his beauty indeed had a surprisingly soothing effect on me.

"No, thank you." Having had just two drinks I sounded groggy already, and both Carlo and Gabriel eyed me with curiosity. "I'll have sparkling water instead."

With a funny flourish, that he had rehearsed for a musketeer movie, Gabriel bowed -- and I couldn't help but check his muscled derriére as he retreated back to the bar. He walked glibly like a top model, his blond ponytail lasciviously swaying in a call to follow him -- and I wondered how he saw me. I knew that I looked much older than thirty three, with my gray hair. How could I not have it, when both my parents were gray haired? Because I was blond like my mother, my hair looked completely white already -- 'emotional white', as I sometimes described it, since it started turning gray shortly after my father left home. It suited my green eyes well, and made an appealing contrast to the tanned skin tone I had inherited from my father. But still, when I met a guy so jovial like Gabriel, who looked even younger than he already was, I had to wonder if I shouldn't start considering dyeing my hair.

"So," I startled at my father's voice, that I hadn't heard in such a long while, coming from so near me, "you drink gin tonic. Just like your mother." Carlo sounded disappointed. Or perhaps surprised. The subtleties of his intonations were no longer familiar to me. "It's a writer's drink, they say."

"And what would be a painter's drink, Carlo?" I lifted an eyebrow, as skeptically high as it would go, but he simply ignored it. 

"I guess it depends on the painter, ha-ha." He laughed briefly, and quickly dismissed the subject. "This is a very nice place, son." Sentence by sentence, it was as if my father was heating up his conversational skills. I was aware of how much he cherished silence, above all things. "The views are stunning. It must be expensive."

"You're my guest, Carlo." But why did I feel compelled to lie? The Nirvana Lounge had been recommended to me by the only friend I still had in town, Dan Charmand, the museum's director. Somehow, I did not want to mention that we were actually both Charmand's guests. "A couple of my paintings have just been bought by well known Art collectors. Let's celebrate!" That, at least, was true, and I was elated with the money and the prestige.

"I'm happy to hear you're having such a brilliant start, Laurent! The art critics are praising your paintings... 'A refreshing punch in the face of the portraying tradition'. Seems like you've knocked down all those guys that are staring at us from the wall, ha-ha!" They were classical male portraits, a fine selection made by Charmand at the request of The Nirvana Lounge's owner. "British lords, aren't they?" Carlo punched the air, as if hitting the gilded noblemen directly, and laughed. I only faked a smile, unable to see what might be so funny. "I'm curious to see your paintings!"

He sounded sincere. I had an invitation for the vernissage in my pocket, just a formality and not as short notice as it might seem -- after much hesitation, a month ago I had phoned my father, for the first time in two decades, to invite him. And he had flown from Italy, where he had been living in our family's ancestral lands in the central Apennines, especially to attend the opening. 

"And I've enjoyed the title of your exhibition so much! 'Portraying Dorian G'. So witty, and very literary. It's only male models, I read. One of the articles mentioned they are all your ex-lovers... How many portraits are there in this show, son?" Carlo giggled.

"Ha-ha! You're funny, Carlo!" Not quite like I remember you, I thought. But I was touched with the fact that he cared enough to read the articles about my show. "So says the legend, that I only portray my ex-lovers..." It came as a surprise that I could be so straightforward about my sexuality with my father. "I don't know who has started this rumor. Probably my marchand, who believes in selling me ahead of my paintings. I have nothing to say about that." We hadn't spoken for more than fifteen minutes, and the subject of my sexuality had already come up on his initiative. "Except that there are forty five paintings in this show."

"Forty five! Wow, that's quite a lot of... models! Ha-ha! So you do have a sense of humour after all." He winked, genuinely amused. "And you already have a marchand. Impressive! It makes me think... how different from my own start! I could never have afforded dining in such a posh restaurant when I started my career."

"It's like I said." I saw myself gesticulating more than usual, already mirroring the Italian man in front of me, and I smiled. If my mother would only see this. Catherine hated whenever I gesticulated, and had strained me not to. But fifteen minutes was all it took to surrender to the Italian blood in me. "Don't worry Carlo, you're my guest..." Charmand's actually, I thought, but Dan was not a very endearing person in the art world, and I was not sure about his relations with Carlo. "And my father, too, so that's why I've chosen the best restaurant in town! Don't think I'm trying to simply show off nor impress you!" Though yes, to be honest I was feeling rather insecure.

"I'm not saying you are! But I'm nevertheless impressed, even if just with that shiny suit of yours... and the muscles underneath it... Ha-ha! And those shoulders, wow!" He halted, before reticently adding, "Do you still swim, Laure--?"

"No!" How did that come off? Too brisk? Did my voice tremble? My hands had certainly started shaking, again, at the mention of that part of my past that I strived hardest to forget. I had tensed. My wide swimmer shoulders, that were one of the distinctive features of my body and a major turn on for many guys, had instantly started aching. The irony being -- I hadn't swam that long to develop shoulders that resembled a stretched mountainous landscape. They had broadened by default, even after I forever quit the swim team. Just to daily remind me, before the mirror, of that which I wished had never happened to me. 

When my father had left, I was rocketing towards becoming the junior state champion, which I actually did achieve. Carlo had brought me to the swim team, and I feared he would inquire about my reasons to drop, when everybody said I was destined to be an Olympian. Expectant, I had the carefully rehearsed lie at the tip of my tongue. But he simply moved on, in his own train of thought.

"I'm happy to hear you calling me father." Again, he paused, as if waiting for any reaction on my part. But I had sworn to myself not to show my feelings for him. "It's just that this place, so elegant... so 'raffinée' as your mother would say... couldn't be any more diverse from my own situation when I started my career, struggling to make it as a painter."

Carlo dove back into silence, and I sank back into my seat, glancing over at the barman who, busy as he was with our drinks, did not miss me checking him. Between the two sets of new clothes I had bought in the morning, I was glad to have chosen Armani for that evening, leaving Miyake for my vernissage, on the next. A white oversize blazer worn with shorts was more daring a statement, while the might of Italian class seemed more appropriate for facing my Italian father. My ex-boyfriend Angelo had labeled Armani's fashion as 'tedious', and I only worsened things by wearing it down to my socks and underwear. I wouldn't risk making my own combinations, either, and preferred to stick to those shown on catalogs. A structured gray blazer with velvety black lapels, the matching black tie on a shiny white shirt, and gray tuxedo pants -- gray was the color that reassured me, making me feel impeccably elegant. I guessed Gabriel thought so, too, because he didn't avert his eyes when I stared at him. Or was it because I looked funny, wearing the same color combination of the curtains, carpet and chairs in the Lounge?

Carlo tilted his head, and I sensed he was willing to tell me something. Yet, he paused for another moment, reflecting. His eyes were vague for a whole minute or so, drawn by the white vortex of light that merged sky and sea outside, until he again focused them on me. 

I was still au fait with my father's long silences, and I just waited.

"How much time do we have, Laurent?" He had murmured his question, as if fearing my answer. He was indeed a shy man.

"I'm all yours tonight, Carlo. I'm here for you." I replied reassuringly, echoing my Zen master.

"Okay, then. It's time you learn more about your father." And anticipating the questions I had kept in my heart for twenty years, he added "Maybe it will help you to understand and forgive me. At least, you'll have that opportunity, tonight."

next episode

Episode 01 | The golden bathroom

prologue
or read on Wattpad



First Transmission | The Heart
| PART ONE |

Vice City, 2008
Laurent & Carlo

 You won't see me with a cocktail in my hands very often.

In fact, I usually say I don't drink alcohol.

But today.

Today I have many reasons to drink.

Not just because the barman is extremely handsome.

And not only because my mother suggested it, a few minutes ago.

As the phone rang, I knew it was her. Third time that day.

"Bonjour, Catherine."

"Bonjour, mon trésor. How is everything going?"

"I'm still waiting for him, if that's your question."

"He hasn't arrived yet!?!" She gasped, quite dramatically. "Honey, I don't know if this was such a good idea after all. You might get hurt again..." I could distinctly hear her pacing, on the other side of the line. "Oh, why does that man always have to lose track of time?"

"Since he is already twenty years late, I don't mind waiting for some twenty minutes or even a couple hours more. Maybe his flight is delayed, who knows?" I let out a deep breath, letting go of my anger. "You'd love this restaurant, Catherine. So fancy. The views over the ocean are breathtaking!" Though I knew she would enjoy the fine Lalique crystal glasses and shiny Christofle silverware best. "Anyway, I have arrived early because I want to settle down, relax and calm my feelings."

"Drop that meditative crap, darling. You sound awfully like him. Have a drink, instead. Like me!" She laughed cheerfully at her own suggestion.

"Only if you promise me you won't drink tonight, Catherine!" And contrary to her cheerfulness, I sounded very serious.

"But I'm going on a date tonight! How can I not drink?" Again, she laughed.

It was no joke. Since the death of her second steady partner -- the first being my father -- Catherine had been drinking, and getting drunk just too often. Nothing major, like it required rehab, but it still was disheartening to see my mother deal with her suffering so unwisely.

"Aren't you in Russia promoting your latest novel, Catherine? Are you dating some Russian?!" After thirty three years of coexistence, the speed at which my mother attracted men into her bed would still astound and disconcert me. Especially if I recalled she was fifty eight years old already... or is that a prejudice? 

"Exactly, mon cher. You should see the bathroom I'm standing in!" That explained why her high heels reverberated so loud. "So golden and olden! Makes me feel like Katherina the czarina, ha-ha! And yes, my date is a writer who's been compared to Dostoyevsky. Don't you think I really need my drinks?" She laughed even louder. Too loud for her usual standards of sophistication and finesse, indicating she had drunk already. "And you know I know how to drink."

"It's more like you know how to get drunk..." I mouthed, quite unskillfully. 

"That's so rude of you, Laurent!" 

"I'm sorry. I'm nervous, I think you can understand why!" She wasn't really angry at me, but I nevertheless apologized. "So, you're really not coming for the vernissage... That would be a great support--"

"Mon trésor, no emotional blackmail now, not over the oceans... I mean, the phone! Not when we are continents apart!" Catherine sounded more bored than annoyed. "You know perfectly well why I won't go, and it's been the same reason why I've never ever visited you in Vice City!" 

"But Catherine... one day you'll have to overcome your fear!" My mother had always been terrified of flying. I thought it made everything so much more difficult and time consuming for her. "Maybe when they give you the Nobel Prize you'll fly to Nor--"

"There are very comfortable trains and ferries instead, darling!" Catherine wasn't in a playful mood and just dismissed it. '"There's no reason why I'm supposed to overcome my fear, nor do anything I don't want to. Still, I'm sorry I won't be there for the opening."

"Then... enjoy your Russian date!" Instead of your own son, I thought, but did not say it; our conversation had become tense, which was a sign to hang up and avoid quarreling. "Au revoir, Catherine."

"Au revoir, mon cher! Like I said, have another drink. One for me." Catherine giggled. "And don't leave me without news or I'll call you again!"

With both my mother's threaten and suggestion in mind, I walked up to the bar, where the attractive bartender shone like a promise of pleasurable relief.

"Can I please have another gin tonic, Gabriel?" He looked like an angel and was named after an archangel. "And I'll be moving to the lounge area." Gabriel firmly grabbed the gin bottle with one hand while, in contrast, taking the glass in the other with a gracious, swirling movement -- and I gasped, hopefully not too loud, noticing how manly strong and skilled his hands were. "When my guest arrives--"

"I'll show him the way, don't worry sir." Why was it that everybody kept interrupting me? Nevertheless, his smile was beautiful, and it actually calmed me down more than aroused my desire. "If there is anything else I can do for you, sir, I'll be--"

My turn to interrupt him. "Please, call me Laurent."

Laurent D'Allegro.

Born of an Italian father and a French mother. Prematurely, on the island of Punaouilo in the Pacific Ocean, in my unpardonable haste interrupting my mother's first holidays in many years -- and her burgeoning academic career at the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris, too.

After such an inadequate start, how could she ever love me?

*****

I had this funny idea.

 That I would die at the age of thirty three.

Like Jesus Christ. 

I was so sure! 

Since I haven't died -- not yet -- I've decided to heal old wounds before heading into the uncertain future. 

The rest of my life, the bonus part, is starting here.

next episode