Episode 91 | Old wounds in the family

previous episode

"Yes. He is gorgeous." I agreed with Carlo, though not feeling truly thrilled. "And everybody seems to be very impressed with his beauty." That, to be honest, I feared could be considered a bit vulgar. But maybe it was just his way of dressing -- or showing off. Why exhibit the crack of his round butt, or his pubic hair, as blond as mine, when Gabriel had a golden smile that radiated confidence? Should I fear his appearance at the vernissage? Had I invited the waiter, but instead a porn actor would show up?   

 Carlo had been blinded by Gabriel's beauty, just like Ted -- he who once alerted me about a guy I had shown up at the museum with, who he knew was into drug dealing. But Carlo, though he wouldn't demonstrate it, was alarmed with my sex life, and how he thought I risked my health. He was still to give me his lecture on my responsibility in going to bed with married or compromised men, on the next couple of days to come, that we would spend together in Vice City. 

That visit to my exhibition had left Carlo dazed and fearful, and perhaps feeling guilty or even remorseful. He had more than once asked if I had really had sex with all those guys I had portrayed, willing that at some moment I would say it had been just a fantasy. He was also trying to understand where my suffering and what he reputed as a destructive behavior came from -- and I had to talk him off and around my secret, always trying to make Angelo seem the main reason of my attempted revenge on men.

Neither preachy nor romantic, Carlo was also trying, on the other hand, to talk me into a stable relationship with Gabriel. Without mentioning it, he had seen my confusion, how lost I was in the paths of my heart, and he thought Gabriel would do as a good enough guy to help me settle down a bit. And I guess I wanted to be talked into romance at that point in my life, I have to confess. I also wanted to see Carlo in his fatherly role again, and I wasn't minding what in other times and terms I might have considered an intrusion.

In the past, at those early hours, I would either be searching for breakfast, after having danced the night away or spent it in someone's bed, or be jogging at the beach -- and I thought I might go back to that healthy habit if I was to again spend more time in Vice City, because of Gabriel and my lectures and workshops scheduled at the museum after the opening. And by 'healthy', I mean the jogging.

Walking along the corridors of the museum, calmly making our way to the exit, escorted by Ted -- who couldn't hide his happiness in seeing me in the company of my father, after having heard no screams nor anything that would have indicated a quarrel during the whole time we spent at The Dark Room --, Carlo had invited me to have breakfast with him, at the small guesthouse where he was staying. He had had one of his paintings sold for a million dollars, yet, he had remained very humble, a man of simple habits. After all those years, I wondered if his passion for sports cars had subsided, too. But I had more pertinent questions to ask.

I thought I might reach and touch my father's hand, to bring him back to the taxi. But I still felt a physical barrier between us. It was remarkable that he had hugged Gabriel, whom he had just met, but not me. Instead, I simply cleared the throat.

"Did you try to contact Armand while you were in London?" Or maybe even from France, I thought. Why not? "He never belonged here. He had to go live his own kind of life, which did not include us", Catherine had said about my father's departure. She might be thinking of Armand, and how she had interrupted their love affair. But from what Carlo had told me, she was actually talking about Jaella, the gipsy girl, and her son -- that was Carlo's parallel life, back then. But was there really a Jaella?, I wondered. I had no whatsoever recollections about a gipsy girl in our house.

"No, I didn't, Laurent."

"But do you know where he is living now? I mean, he is still alive, isn't he?"  Few years ago, Armand Purlux Drurien had won the Pritzker Prize, that's the only thing I knew about him. I had always admired his work, even without knowing he was my uncle.

"I'm not sure where he is living now... But your mother should know. At least, her lawyers should know it."

"Would you mind," My father wasn't very enthusiastically talking about Armand, and I tried to be tactful, "if I try to contact him, Carlo?"

"These are old wounds in the family, son." Carlo sighed, and looked away through the window. We going past one of the marinas, and noisily encircling one of the approaching boats, seagulls were every now and then dive bombing. "I hope you understand that." Though sitting next to me, his voice seemed to arrive from another dimension. "Give yourself some time and afterthought before you do anything. These wounds have existed prior to your birth. Maybe there is nothing you can do about them. And talk to your mother, first. That's all I ask from you, Laurent. But no, I won't try to prevent you from talking to Armand."

That was final, and I understood it from Carlo's tone. He wasn't willing to add anything else to that. 

To me, it sounded like he was talking about himself somehow, too. Those 'family wounds' had existed prior to his clumsy participation in the De Montbelle affair. He had not simply gotten entangled, he had actually worsened things when he left Armand for Catherine -- or ultimately, for me. That's what was striking me hardest at the moment. That I had parted my father from his only and true love.

"You are my only and true love, Laurent, haven't you understood it yet?" I would hear Carlo's heartfelt clarification a few years later, but just not yet, not in that taxi, not only a little over twelve hours since we had reconnected, after a twenty years separation.

"Does Armand know about me?" My voice trembled as I asked that. They had hidden my uncle from me, and I expected they would have hidden me from my uncle as well. Otherwise, he would be in the known all those years, yet ignoring me. Pretty much like he had done with my mother, his half-sister, avoiding her after he had learned about her existence. For a moment, I could grasp what Catherine had felt, the humiliation that Armand's silence and indifference distilled.

"I believe so. I should think your mother has done everything to ensure Armand knows about your existence." Though it might not have been my father's intention, he had made it sound like I was a piece of propaganda in a war.

A De Montbelle heir! I didn't care about the princely name -- although, of course, Laurent D'Allegro et de Montbelle sounded awfully nice, regal even!  Nor did I care about the fortune I was entitled to, no matter how humongous it might be -- Celeste's inheritance was more than enough for a lifetime, and we hadn't sold a single painting from her exquisite collection. With part of her money, I had built my dream house overlooking the Pacific Ocean -- yes, towards the direction where Punaouilo was -- and I wasn't cogitating living in a palace, not yet. The Château de Montbelle was not in my plans, nor did I feel I should avenge my grandmother, who had never occupied it. What I actually cared about was my recently expanded family, my newly acquired history and ascendancy. I cared about my uncle. But the answers I now longed for would not come from Carlo. 

I wondered what Catherine would say about my father's story. Would she deny it? What parts would she try to twist in an unexpected way to serve her own purposes? And what were those purposes? Why lie? Would she come up with new lies? Had she had them in stock, already? Catherine was a writer, and sometimes it seemed to me she was a professional liar, not quite realizing the boundaries between her imaginary world and real life -- since she went about life burdened by the lives of many people inside her head and heart. 

She must have been pondering about that for the last thirty three years. I mean, what she would tell me when the truth was revealed? That's probably why Catherine had called me so many times during that afternoon, prior to Carlo's arrival. She could not extensively know what Carlo would tell me, but she had a good hint. And that's why she must have been so anguished as to try to reach me at the Nirvana Lounge during the wee hours.

Carlo and I had again fallen silent, each with his own thoughts.

It was not a heavy, annoying nor tense silence, that enveloped us in the taxi. 

I had been exposed to that kind of peaceful quietude before, and I knew that Carlo was concentrating on his breathing, calming his feelings and his thinking. I  was aware I should be doing the same, but questions and doubts were restlessly fossicking in my mind, unfinished thoughts colliding and creating more confusion.

From among them, a memory sprung. As a child, I used to be intrigued when my father, at the end of each day, would retreat to the back of the mansion's garden, but on the opposite side of where our little cottage was, and after sitting, retreat even further -- into silence and immobility, into himself. There was no other adult doing that in Punaouilo, and I found it rather curious.

And the more intrigued I was, when Catherine's reactions to those sitting periods of Carlo's were always so strongly negative. 

"Go hide yourself, Carlo!" She would shout at my father, without even lifting her eyes from the text she might be reading or writing, as he stepped out onto the garden.

Of course, I had followed him to check where he was going to hide. But he just sit in the open, silent and immovable, day after day, in a place of the garden where everybody could spot him, from the distance even. How could someone hide and yet be seen by everyone?

"Your mother thinks I'm hiding because she believes I'm trying to escape reality when I do meditation." Of course, my next question was what meditation was, and what was it for? "To calm my mind and my heart." And I had to ask what the mind and the heart were. "They are the rooms of the house where your thoughts live, and where your feelings live..." Our questions and answers sessions on the topic went on and on, until we were called for dinner by Joanna.

"Won't you die, dad? Won't you become stupid?"

I was concerned when my father said he was trying to silence the thoughts in his mind.

"One might become livelier, Laurent. And more intelligent, with a clearer and sharper mind, by meditating."

 I'll never forget how he had demonstrated it. First, he requested me to thoroughly paint and draw and scribble a single leaf of blank paper. Then, when the paper was full, he instructed me to add a new drawing that had to be more beautiful than anything else that already existed on that piece of paper. Obviously, there was no space left, and when I tried to draw on top of everything else, it became blurred, unclear, dirty. "Now, if you erase one corner, you'll find that space... And the more empty space you make, the more room you have for new things to come up... In your mind and your heart, equally."

I did not try meditation until many years later, and I'm not sure I actually recalled the insights Carlo had shared with me when I was a child.

After having learned of Laura's existence, I was very desperate at the last months of my relationship with Angelo, fearing  the end was near -- and someone had suggested I tried meditation. I don't remember who it was, but I do remember my first retreat of total silence, and how after a few hours I had been annoyed by my own mental voice, continuously commenting and complaining and endlessly chatting in my mind -- and how I had told myself, quite unwise and impolitely, to shut up.

Nothing ever helped me to overcome my grief and that feeling of being hollow like meditation did -- and the realization that I was actually empty, too, my mind just like a blank screen were many projections came and went by, thoughts, perceptions, feelings -- sadness being just one of them, and just as impermanent and unstable like all others. Feelings of inadequacy and rejection, suicidal thoughts, the urge of revenge -- everything came and went, as I watched my mind like a vaster blank screen that nothing could never quite fill. And suffering lost its power to take hold of me.

Over the years, I quit meditation. Because it made me feel detached, parting me from the young and wild crowd of my own age, who was into partying, drinking, dancing and having sex. As much as it brought me peace and put me in contact with the timeless present, meditation had made me feel displaced, old, and out of my own time -- and I don't know why I pictured dwelling in timeless peace a bad thing to come upon me. 

For meditation was very effective in lessening not only my suffering -- it also was decreasing my lust. But instead of persisting in that path of mental liberation, I had joyfully and carelessly chosen to join the lively and loud gay crowd for ten years. Blame it on my youth?

But in the back seat of that taxi, by my father's side, in touch with his peaceful silence, contrasting the turmoil in my own mind and heart, I again felt like getting in touch with that aspect of myself I had pushed aside.

Mostly because I perceived meditation as something ultimately linking me to Armand, and consequently to my De Montbelle blood. A noble transmission -- coming through Carlo -- I had never dreamt of. I actually wanted to ask whether my uncle, that surprising wonderful new presence in my life, had remained being my father's only master on the so called spiritual path. 

And an idea, that would become my mission in the years to come, bloomed in my heart -- I wanted to locate and visit the Île du Blanchomme, the island of my conception, where I had been first of all an apparition during my father's meditation sessions at sunrise. Would he help me locate it?

I guess we were both tired and weary from such a long conversation, to be willing to still carry it on. It had been unexpectedly peaceful, and neither Carlo nor I wanted to dig any deeper than that, for the moment, because we were treading on mined terrain. Both he and I knew Catherine would have to be summoned upon stage. There were too many things I had to take in, and I'd probably need to be on my own to start that digestive process. But by having accepted my father's invitation for breakfast, a step had been taken into the future, into a new common future, that's how I felt it now, moving farther away from the shattered past. There was no need for calculations -- we hadn't had a breakfast together for twenty years.

It was simply a meal, but also a confirmation that our relationship had been reestablished, without the need for words, nor any formal treaty -- that was the soothing sentiment that filled me, as I followed Carlo up the stairs to  the dining hall of his hotel. More like a guesthouse, really, with a very homely feeling to it, fading family photographs in peeling enamel frames and lots of artcraft and other handmade stuff as decoration, that made an odd collection and ode to kitsch.

next episode

Episode 90 | The orphaned father

previous episode

During the entire day and throughout the night, the high rises of Vice City stood impossibly tall, posers of menacing challenges to gravity. Haughtily showing off themselves, sculptural domino pieces in the deceiving mirror game of self-infatuation criss-crossed across their glass surfaces, they constituted a narcissistic club of exhibitionists. Just around dawn did they seem to find some sense and purpose, other than their own selfish vanity and pride. Even before the sun had made its way above the horizon, their prismatic nature eagerly sucked the first rays of light to reflect and multiply them, on a myriad of windows, propelling and hastening the impending day. 

My father and I solemnly watched as the buildings became gigantic menhirs of fire against the pale blue tissue of the sky, the mightiest presences in sight until the sun made its apparition, vanquishing and fusing everything in a flood of light. And I recalled the Sunrise Son anecdote, while we again crossed the city in the back of a taxi, headed South to where Carlo was lodged. 

Of course I knew my father could be lying to me. But perhaps 'know' is the wrong verb here, since I did not know what he could be lying about. Something was still missing, something was yet being hidden from me. I could only sense it, not know it.

And because I had been pushing away the memory of my father from my mind for two decades, now that he was present I was pushing away everything that represented any negativity toward him, from my mind and my heart. Resentment, anger, fear, contempt -- unfortunately, my intuitions as well.

Perplexed, my mind found some solace in the improvised, man-made metropolitan metronome that seemed to dictate the hypnotic rhythm of our ride, as elegant palm trees profiled along avenues for several miles, uniting different neighborhoods. The prettiest among them were Caribbean royal palms, that I had not seen in my honeymoon with Angelo in the Caribbean itself, but much later, at their tallest, at the Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. This recollection -- associated to that of beaches full of outrageously tanned, gorgeous carioca men in sexy speedos -- immediately gave me Wanderlust. Or was I just willing to escape the new configuration presented by my father for my life?

"Will you ever forgive me, Laurent?" He murmured, so low that a car passing by would have smothered his voice. But we were the single vehicle anywhere to be seen, and I heard him perfectly.

Ever? It sounded awfully dramatic, but Carlo was very serious and serene when he pronounced those words, and he really meant it that way. 

Had I started forgiving Carlo the moment I had seen him, grown old and a bit saddened, at the Nirvana Lounge? Or had my heart started melting when he told me about his rough start, how he had endured hunger and cold to pursue his career? Or was it his tale of love, gay love, the love he had felt for his best friend, yet to never act it out? Were I with him the moment he had kissed Armand, for the first and the last time? Did my heart break when he had to leave his beloved friend behind -- because Catherine was pregnant of me? Had I been touched by all Carlo had done to try to build our little family? Did I value his suffering, all the humiliation he had gone through to stay by my side, his Sunrise Son? I had certainly been ashamed of my outburst of anger, at his mentions of the apparition... that had turned me into his announced, beloved son. 

I wouldn't call him father just like I had stopped calling Catherine mother -- for I felt that some emotional distance between me and my parents was needed so I could grow into an adult myself. Yet, it hadn't helped me regarding them more as individuals, as real persons, and not just as people who gravitated around me, functioning mainly for the maintenance of my well being.

"Are there any pictures from your childhood in the Apennines, Carlo?" I inquired, leaving his question unanswered.

Carlo was taken aghast with my thread of thought, and for a long while he was silent. The taxi driver, despite his bleached hair, was a rather discreet and quiet one, who drove safely and took his time in slowly accelerating when the lights flashed green. It was a bit enervating even, but closer to Carlo's pace, giving him time to ponder his words.

"No." It sounded like he had never thought about that before, himself. "There might be official documents, but I don't think they contain any photos... Not in my birth certificate, not in my school records... No, since we did not have a camera in the mountains."

And that's how I'm never going to see the face of my father when he was a child, I thought. 

The little orphaned boy who lived a sober and rather plain life with his strict grandfather. Had he been afraid? Had Tarso often punished or yelled at him? Had my father cried? Did he feel sad, occupying the room and bed that previously had belonged to his deceased father? Had he felt lonely? Or tired and bored from the long work hours? When did he start drawing? How had he discovered his talent? Did he have to hide it from Tarso? What had led him to decide he wanted to leave the family farm to go abroad, venture into the unknown? How had he learned about the École des Beaux-Arts? How did he get the money to send his drawings over to Paris? How he must have awaited in painful expectation, if it were his dream  -- or simply desperate, in case it was salvation? Did he believe he would get an answer? And when the answer had arrived, had he already made up his mind about leaving? Did he have a fight with Tarso on that? Again, how did he get to Paris?

I realized how little -- close to nothing  -- I had known about my father. How I had been blind to him as a person, to his suffering, his expectations, his fragility, his dreams, his struggles... But then... had I ever cared to know? It might have been ok when I was a child, but now... I had never even asked the name of his deceased parents.

For the last twenty years I had cultivated resentment, whenever I thought of Carlo. But the image of my father as an orphaned child, who as an adult thought he was not capable of being a good father -- was heartbreaking. Intentionally heart wrenching, perhaps? I had never thought on how he would feel about my silence after his escape. Probably by bitterly keeping my distance I had intended to hurt him, though that intention was never clear to me -- and I actually did hurt him, and the orphaned, hurt child that still lived in him, who had already been hurt.

My silence had led him to retreat back into his own sadness, I now discovered. A place no better than the resentment where I had retreated myself. And we had thus estranged and distanced ourselves.

That I was responsible, if not for our separation, but still, for our remaining apart, was certainly a haunting conclusion for me. I had always thought of myself as the victim... But if I had remained being a victim, it had been my actual choice -- that was Carlo's implicit message to me. 

From my father's point of view, as I perceived it for the first time, I might have abandoned him as well. He had to flee, but he had tried to contact me, several times after the unfortunate event -- and the truth is, in my cultivated hostility, I hadn't wanted to talk to him.

I knew my father was an orphan, but I had never quite reflected about that. Had I experienced a fraction of the pain he had felt himself? Could I imagine how it was like, not having any memory of your parents? I had chosen to forget my father -- at least I had tried to --, but Carlo couldn't recall his own father. Not even if he most desperately wanted to. I had made my choice to stay away from my father; Carlo had no choice about his own father. And how all that had affected him in relation to me. How his absent father had been present in Carlo's absence -- or else, in my absence from his life. What a mess. What a painful mess, and an awkward continuity and transmission of suffering over generations.

He had flown overseas from Italy to Vice City, leaving his adored hermitage in the mountains just to be present at my vernissage -- and according to what he had just said, he would have flown in earlier. Anytime I had called? Would he have visited me in Vice City during my University years? Maybe, if he had met Angelo, he would have helped me out of that sick relationship. At least, he would have comforted me at the end of that love affair... Maybe, if I had broken our silence. Maybe -- but I hadn't been aware of the importance and significance of that silence, my stubborn silence aimed at my father, nor what it had meant and how it had affected Carlo.

"He seems to be a good boy, don't you think so, son?" It was my father to break the silence.

Carlo was talking about Gabriel, of course.

****

Ted, the old guard that was my friend, had finally come upstairs to ask us to leave. He only did it when the museum's cleaning staff had arrived, early in the morning. 

"And there is a very fine young man waiting for you outside, Laurent." Ted had winked at me. He had seen me in action before, picking guys at the museum, be it in the exhibition rooms, the cafeteria or even at the library. But never at the restrooms, and that's why he placed me above the majority of the gay crowd -- he wasn't the least homophobic, having a gay nephew himself, but he hated having to ask guys to behave decently, either put their pants up or leave. But he hated equally that straight couples tried to make out in the deserted corners of the museum, and smokers or anyone who broke the museum's rules. According to him, I was his best example of how a fine young person should behave.

"He must be really interested in you, Laurent, to still be up at this early hour..." Carlo murmured, as we descended the stairs towards the sidewalk, where Gabriel had laid himself, striking a rather sexy pose. He knew I was coming down that way, and he must have calculated how I'd find him -- that's how Gabriel was. Seeing him wearing fancy clothes that outlined a body in perfect shape, I felt my lust on the rise again. His tight black and shiny leather shorts were something out of a porn set, and for a moment I wondered if he wasn't in the industry. I wasn't prejudiced against it -- my problem with porn actors was that I wasn't confident enough to believe I could give them real pleasure. But I was willing to give Gabriel a try.

He hadn't even slept -- but still, he looked gorgeous. He wore a tank top that was transparent black, and one could learn how to count on his ripped abdomen. He seemed very self-conscious of his beauty, while I was aware that my suit was all wrinkled -- but even so, it remained being Armani's top quality, leaving me reassured. I just feared I might be stinking, too, for I still felt sweat streaming down my body, despite outdoors being much nicer than it had been inside. 

Gabriel had left the Nirvana Lounge to take a shower at home, eaten something heavily energetic and full of protein, and being just on his way to a rave, he wanted me to come along with him. 

"No, it's OK if you don't want to come." He tried to hide his disappointment when I had refused his invitation to join him for the party. Or perhaps he had acted out a small disappointment he did not actually feel, but that he thought might be sincere to show as part of his interest in me. It was hard to say when Gabriel was acting or being sincere, especially because he was not a very good actor. 

But he had come to the museum -- and he knew our destination since he had called the taxi for us -- not only to invite me for the party. He had a message to deliver.

The phone at Nirvana Lounge had started ringing after Carlo and I had left. Gabriel wouldn't usually have picked it up, since he was on his way out already, but he feared we had left something behind and answered it.

It was Catherine, calling from Russia.

"I think she is very worried... but also mad at you, Laurent." He was whispering, and I was not quite sure if he wanted to be discreet, or if he simply wanted to draw us closer, so that our bodies were again touching. He wasn't inadvertently brushing his thigh against mine, and succeeding in his intent to arouse me.  "I did not understand her English very well, and I don't think she understood mine either." Gabriel had laughed, and I had shivered at his warm breath up my ears. Despite the fact that I was exhausted, and Carlo stood only a few steps apart, I felt it difficult to continue avoiding planting a wet kiss on Gabriel's full lips. He had made the rave sound inviting, but a threaten at the same time, that he could maybe find someone else to have fun with. He certainly would, I sensed, and why shouldn't he? "From what I understood, she's been trying to reach you on your mobile all through the night. But seems like you've kept it off. Then she gave me your number," Gabriel had a quite charming wink, and he looked happy as if he had already discovered a secret about me, "and I tried to call you... It is off indeed, isn't it?" He reached and touched the cell phone, that was outlined in the pocket of my pants, and for a moment I thought he was going for another volume that was distinctly swelling.

It was so annoying that Catherine had tried to reach me at the Lounge. Her silence could sometimes last for weeks, without her phoning nor texting me in a no news starvation policy that I had almost grown used to. But all of a sudden, when she felt like she needed to talk to me, nothing would stop her from actually finding me, buggering my friends, calling consulates and embassies and airlines until she finally reached me wherever I was in the world. I hated that -- how it was done at her neurotic convenience infuriated me. 

I was nevertheless touched with Gabriel's effort to let me know about my mother. And thinking about it now, I guess he was, above all, trying to be nice to her. While changing clothes at his place, he had already Googled her that morning, and had been very impressed with her international fame. For the next two years, I was to endure his fawning interest in my mother and her literature. Though Gabriel was that new sort of actor who relied mostly on his looks and did not have much culture in general nor ever tried to improve it, like he instead cultivated his biceps, the pectorals and ripped abs. He hated reading, but he would turn Catherine Mortinné's novels into a sort of homework.

"Lau," I hated how he had nicknamed me, "don't you think I could play Giorgos?" Gabriel had questioned me one day, in the first weeks of our torrid affair, mentioning a character from one of Catherine's bestsellers. 

I have to confess I had never read my mother's books. Not that I hadn't tried. I had begun a few of them, that I saw lying around our house in France. But I could immediately recognize the stories among those being told in my everyday life -- actually, being experimented on me -- and they did not seem to hold interest for me any longer, once they had been written. "Guess what has happened to this friend of mine!", Catherine would start a conversation with me. But there was no friend, she was just trying on me a new character, a line or a fictional event she was working on. It had been just a trick to attract my interest, but in time I started feeling it was actually a lie, and a way of using me, just too often. I was always the first to have to listen to her newly invented plots. And that's how I had  gradually lost interest in her books and stories. Though, obviously, I never declared it openly, for I still feared losing her. 

next episode

Episode 82 | Between Paris and Punaouilo

previous episode

"Do you think she would have returned to Punaouilo, Carlo?"

The taxi had taken another of the longest detours, just like I had requested the driver to do. But to be honest, none of us paid much attention to the city parading behind the windows. We were equally oblivious to the fancy neighborhoods that had once impressed and seduced me, the university district from my youthful years of struggle and failure, the lugubrious port area where Angelo hunted for sex. Not even the occasional horn or siren, the shouts and music coming from other cars, were capable of dragging us from the recollections in which we were immersed. The city tour was happening inside us, on an island not just very distant over the oceans, but mainly in time, and so foreign to that frantic metropolitan labyrinth.

Carlo and I had never talked about the period when Catherine had returned to France on her own, leaving us both behind in Punaouilo, without any news for a long while. 

"I was on a slow ship to France, did you forget it, mon trésor?", Catherine had tried to justify her silence and lack of communication. "And when I got to Paris I was so busy for a while that I might have forgotten... You're not mad at me, are you, mon cher?" It had felt so weird to be talking to my mother over the telephone for the first time, and I'm not sure I quite understood what the distance between Paris and Punaouilo was.

"Maman, where is maman? I want to see mommy..." I remember crying for Catherine, and asking Carlo about her every hour, on the first weeks after she left. And then daily, once or twice, as months went by. "I want to talk to mommy..." was all I whined for, having understood I would not be seeing her any time soon. My frustration would only increase when the lack of calls was justified with how expensive international calls were. Unless it was an emergency, we were never supposed to call my mother at Celeste's apartment -- and I guess we never did. But waiting for days between telephone calls to speak to my mother was similar to torturing me. Or was it weeks? Whatever it was, it was too long for a six years old boy.

As a writer, she'd rather send me letters, that I'd soon learn to carefully answer. I still remember how my joy had vanished at the second letter I got from Catherine -- to find in the same envelope the letter I had sent in response to her first, all scribbled in red, where she pointed my thousand mistakes. "You are writing, Laurent, not speaking. Please!" No matter how much Carlo supervised my writing and helped me on the next ones, it was always disheartening to forcibly find my own letters corrected and revised at each post delivery. Even after I asked for teachers's help, unable to find any orthographic errors, Catherine would still rephrase my sentences. But that was not the worst, nor not receiving any toys, books, nor even clothes from my mother in France. I could cope with the fact that my letters were never good enough -- what terrified me was that, apparently, in the distance it was easier to let her down, to finally lose any affection she had ever shown for me. Unless I became a good writer, it seemed, and during my childhood in Punaouilo still, the first step had been given towards the tortuous ways that would take me to Vice City's School of Journalism.   

When, after one year she had been away, I finally realized how saddened Carlo was with helplessly watching me cry, I had started hiding my tears from him, crying on the way to or from school, or alone at the corners of the garden.

I thought I was thus hiding my sadness from him -- except for the fact that, in our little chalet, I started occupying the chair and the desk that had belonged to Catherine. It was unthinkable that I would have used them before, when my mother was there, but in her absence that's where I did my homework and ate my snacks. 

"In the beginning, yes... Because I did not understand her intention of again establishing herself in France. Apparently, she had gone to see Gaston, who was already very sick. Completely sclerotic, he wouldn't even acknowledged Catherine, and Celeste had lifted the exile. She had mentioned she might spend a longer while in France, since she had also wanted to promote her first book, released just over a year before, and to supervise the editing of her second novel. But with Gaston's death, Celeste and Catherine decided to again join forces against the only remaining de Montbelle -- Armand. At this point, I guess, she already wanted to definitely live again in France. But she still spoke about her return to Punaouilo over the phone," Carlo smiled sadly, and I wondered whether he still was in love with Catherine, "though maybe just the thought of her journey back to the Pacific Ocean might have scared her..."

"Upon returning to France, Catherine finally discovered who I was..." Carlo murmured. "And I mean 'persona non grata' for Monsiuer de Montbelle, her father. Celeste had taken a few years to find my true identity, because Jonnhy had kindly kept it a secret. But once Clothilde, who was aware of the hatred Gaston cultivated for me, had learned it from her husband, she had immediately turned me in to Celeste." 

And Celeste had implied that was the main reason to keep Catherine in exile -- her daughter's damned husband, companion, partner or whatever kind of doom Carlo was to Catherine -- and to Armand.

*****

"Just imagine if Gaston learned that your partner, Catherine, was the man he hated and despised most in the world!" Celeste narrowed her eyes and groaned dramatically, bringing a hand to her forehead, as if she felt a twinge there. She had stressed the new maid to only use eau de roses on her clothes, for anything else gave her headaches, but the foreign girl had been stone deaf. "The man who misconducted his beloved firstborn son! Gaston surely imagined that man to be the companion for Armand's follies in India... But I'm glad he died without knowing that his son was nasty enough to have had this dreaded guy for boyfriend!" 

Celeste did not hide her disgust. Despite having many gay men gathering at her soirées at the Rue de Furstemberg, Celeste wouldn't tolerate any open displays of affection between them, in respect to Monsieur de Montbelle's conservative opinions. Though he would hardly join her meetings, and only when it were businessmen and politicians -- even among these, all respectable and married men, she was aware who were the closeted gays, and she appreciated them just as much as the openly gay ones, for they all made marvelous admirers. Straight men might gift her jewelry or clothes, but it wasn't in their nature to compliment her hair nor her perfectly fitting dresses, and that's where gays made the best fan club a woman would ever want. Who better to share make-up hints or artfully fold napkins?

"Congratulations, my child, for having snatched Armand's lover!" Celeste sniggered at her daughter's creative way of hurting the half-brother. "But why make a baby with him? Why tie yourself to such an uneducated pauper? You should have investigated this guy much better before going to bed with him, Catherine... It was tremendously foolish!" She was indignant.

"Celeste! You forget that I was at the end of the world? There was nothing to investigate! I just took what Armand held as his sweetest, most precious... toy. At this point..." It was 1982, Laurent was seven years old, and Catherine wondered, "I imagine he must have learned that his ex-lover is the father to his own nephew, and I rejoice thinking that he suffers from this fact every single day of his existence..."

"You deceived me all these years!" Catherine had quarreled with Carlo over the telephone, screams and accusations being exchanged between Paris and Punaouilo, once she had learned through Celeste how Gaston had hated and despised Carlo.

"How could I know that he hated me so much?" Carlo had helplessly lied to her. And their short conversation was over.

"If Armand never said anything to Carlo," Catherine drew her own conclusions, "...if he hid Gaston's wrath, it was because he really wanted... needed... Yeah, I think Armand indeed loved Carlo!" Catherine dissolved into laughter, again pleased with the taste of renewed vengeance. Armand had once gotten the best share of life, ignoring or trampling his half-sister's existence, but now Catherine rejoiced thinking she had hurt him for the rest of his life. A child, and the only heir to the De Montbelle name and fortune. "Sometimes I like to think he goes to bed and, when he closes his eyes, he starts wondering if Carlo is doing it to me..."

"Oh please, Catherine! Are you actually defending this Carlo guy?" Celeste demonstrated her repulse by taking a longer sip of champagne and remaining silent for a few seconds, that seemed like an eternity to her own loquacity standard. "Do you like him at all? How can you, after all the education and culture and refinement I tried to pass on to you--"

"He is a good man, Celeste." Catherine replied abruptly. "Maybe you will like him, when you get to know him--"

Celeste gave a little shriek to interrupt Catherine. "Oh no! God grant it never happens! Why would I want to meet this obnoxious young man, who caused so much suffering to my dear Nanon?" That was how Celeste was calling Gaston, Monsieur de Montbelle, when he was sclerotic. As if he were a two years old child -- though, in fact, he was less capable than a two years old.

"What a shame." Catherine hesitated, waiting to see whether she could continue, not wanting to attract Celeste's wrath upon herself. "I think you'd like him. He is very docile. And being a peasant, very obedient, too. To be honest, I never met a man as easy to handle as Carlo. He is probably the most tractable, subservient man I ever knew. And I think Laurent inherited it from him... thank God!" Catherine smirked. 

"These qualities are excellent for a servant, Catherine!" Celeste commented. "I figured you were talking about your man... I imagine that he... has other talents?" Celeste asked, slyly.

"Of course he has!" Catherine decided to tease her mother. "In fact," she made a circumference with her fingers to indicate how thick Carlo was, realizing she couldn't quite close them if she wanted to pay justice to his erection, "sometimes I think I should respect Armand... If only because he had to be very manly to take Carlo up his--"

"Oh mon Dieu! Please, child! Spare me these hideous details!" Celeste screamed, scowling with disgust, while Catherine laughed. Celeste didn't care about a man's size, since it was his seed to carry the gold. "So... you are determined to bring the boy to France... together with that rude pauper, I understand."

"Of course I'll bring Laurent home! You know..." Catherine tried to sound jokingly, but it was her wounded heart that lead her to her resentful remark. "I don't think I could spend six years away from my own son..." That was the amount of time that Catherine's exile in Punaouilo, imposed by her own mother, had lasted. And it had only been interrupted due to Gaston's irreversible disease.

"If that was so, Catherine, why did it take you two years since you have arrived in France to decide to bring your son over?" Celeste ironized, "If you miss the kid so much..."

"Time flies, doesn't it, Celeste?" Catherine had tried to dismiss her mother's accusations, seeing she would not arouse guilt in Celeste's heart. "But not two full years have passed by, yet! And now they are already packing to come!"

"They? Did you say it in plural? They?" Celeste snorted, exasperated. "I have already said that I will pay only for the boy's ticket!" She carefully picked a loose thread from a cushion, taking control of her rage and she rolled it into a tiny ball.

"Do not worry. Carlo seems to have received some money for those dreary paintings of him, and even a commission for new ones... I still don't quite understand how it suddenly changed for him, but..." In fact, Catherine had not paid much attention nor shown interest in the episode of Davez Drew's stay in Punaouilo, for she had never heard of the rock star before, nor how it had changed Carlo's luck. "He will pay for his own ticket. And you don't want a seven year old boy to travel all alone by ship to France, do you, Celeste?" Unfortunately, Laurent would spend his eightieth birthday on the ship, but at least, Catherine considered it good that he would be on his way to civilization already. 

"Well, if the kid needs a travel companion, then I guess... Je suis d'accord. But don't tell me you're not also interested in getting your sex toy back! And please, Catherine, I'm not going to host this guy here in Paris! Even if--"

"You still don't quite get it, do you Celeste?" Catherine bravely interrupted her mother. "Laurent is the sole heir of the De Montbelle family! That's why I want to go to court for the posthumous recognition of paternity... on behalf of my son! It's no longer about me, Celeste! I want to see Armand legally accepting Laurent in the De Montbelle family, knowing that he is the son of his former boyfriend!" Catherine chuckled. "I'll give Armand the gift of a lovely nephew... and upon looking at his only relative, he will forever see the lover whom he lost... Do you understand it now, Celeste? Father and son together, in this case, become my most powerful blow, the strongest revenge spell I could cast on that... fag."

"If this is good or bad, we shall see..." Celeste replied, hesitantly. "I have to talk to my lawyers again. Your case cannot hinder Gaston's inheritance process. And that little pederast is not making it any easier for us!"

Celeste had decided to contest Monsieur de Montbelle's will, claiming that she had often helped Gaston to contact politicians, business and industry magnates whom she knew, and those maneuvers had benefited his businesses immensely. Despite having obtained large amounts of money and several properties from Gaston when he was still alive, Celeste was not satisfied yet -- and perhaps she never would be, since Monsieur de Montbelle hadn't ever married her.

"Anyway, I do not want this guy here at my home!" With her usual assertiveness, Celeste was peremptory in proclaiming Carlo's final sentence. 

Catherine had received her Parisian death sentence, as well. Celeste no longer wanted her daughter living with her, and Catherine was trying to get mentally prepared to again abandon Paris, the quiet and exclusive Rue de Furstemberg and her beloved 6e arrondessiment. Celeste had bought her a rural property in Southern France, a rather modern house, perfectly comfortable and as good as anything so far from Paris could be, if anything away from Paris could be of any good. Catherine would have to leave soon, to prepare the house to receive Laurent and Carlo. 

"And please give me some time before I meet the boy..." Celeste gulped and grimaced, as if she had sucked on lemon. " I'm not ready yet to be a grandmother!"

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.