The warm sounds of “The Moonlight Sonata” fill the cold atmosphere of my room. I just stand here, looking through the window at the same lame scenery I have been looking at for 19 years. Leaving this room means leaving the past and everything that has something to do with it. As if to prevent it, the memories of my childhood hold hands and dance around me in circles, urging me to take them back in my mind. But I already forgot them, I have pressured myself to do it and I have succeeded. They don’t impress me anymore. Nostalgia makes me cry but it is time to leave the past behind.
The room is almost empty. The only thing left is a tape recorder that I always carry around with me. I can’t decide to leave yet. Even though I have been waiting for this moment for so long, I find it hard. So many things have happened in this room that it’s impossible to leave it just like that. It has become a part of me; it holds all my secrets, same as the diary hidden under the floor, where my favorite lamp has been. I feel tears coming to my eyes when I think that even the furniture has been given away. Another rebel teenager probably sleeps in my bed now, dreaming my own dreams. If I close my eyes, I can see her laying on white, ordinary sheets still keeping the heavy smell of starch, near some good-looking boyfriend who fell asleep face down, with his head on her thighs, after having offered her a few hours of pleasure.
But what am I saying? I was less than seventeen when all this happened to me for the first time. I still remember how happy I was, so full of life, so… It’s too bad I’m not able to feel like that anymore. Too bad I have to leave this place, even though it would be so hard to say how many happy moments I’ve had here. But maybe I should start with the beginning…
I can’t go beyond the age of five. Through some kind of strange phenomenon, it seems that my life began with that fifth birthday. The house was full of a bunch of annoying and noisy kids who put my mother through hell, even though I was too young to understand that back then. Yes, my father was there too, but he was too busy playing clown. I can’t say he was very good at it, but it looked like some of my little friends found him funny enough to watch him for hours. He had rented a silly suit and a horse and, on the back lawn, he tried his best to make the show worthy of me.
The home movie my mother made then and the photos in the family albums help me remember the entire day. Even though the cake was usually brought out after lunch, my parents had decided to surprise me. They managed to postpone the moment until nightfall. They had decorated the trees in the garden with the Christmas decorations we kept in a box. When night came, they plugged them in and suddenly the garden became a fairy-tale place. Everything was covered in light. The kids were fascinated. They had never seen something as beautiful. They were all quiet and they weren’t even asked to be. My parents brought out the cake, a huge chocolate heart with a hundred candles on top of it. Five of them, indicating my age, were higher. I remember being so happy! While I blew out the candles, I wished that nothing would ever change. Ever. I wished I were forever five, with my mom and dad who loved each other so much. With my five-year-old mind I couldn’t conceive something else. It was obvious that my tale would last forever. I was a little princess whose every wish was fulfilled by the Good Fairy. I guess my Good Fairy probably didn’t hear me that day, because things soon started to change.
After a year or two, I was definitely able to say that the atmosphere in the house wasn’t the same. I wasn’t always sure of it. Sometimes I even talked to my dolls, telling them I had had a bad dream. The fact that my father had stopped coming to pick me up from school was a real tragedy to me. I couldn’t understand what my mother kept trying to explain to me, that my father had to work a lot, but that he did it for his little princess, so that I would have everything I wanted. Even if I wasn’t convinced of that, I started believing it. The beauty of my childhood faded away a little by little, but somehow I always found other things to occupy my mind with.
Then I started seeing my mother crying and trying to hide it. I wanted to pretend I didn’t notice anything, but my childish curiosity couldn’t be detained. I had to find out the reason behind my mom’s tears. I would climb up on her knees when I saw her like that: “Mommy, why are you crying? Mommy, don’t cry…” I would beg. She would hold me tight in her arms and start crying even heavier than before. I couldn’t see her face when I sat like that on her knees, my head resting on her shoulder, but I felt her warm tears on the back of my neck. I would always get cold chills when I felt that, but I wouldn’t leave her until she asked me to. I knew that my hugs made her happy and so I used to hug her all the time, with no reason at all. When she was not upset, she would kiss me on my forehead and ask in a low voice: “What do you want now?” as if I did that only to get something in return. We both knew that wasn’t true.
I was eight when I heard my mother screaming for the first time. I thought it was just the TV at first, but I listened carefully and I realized that it was coming from their bedroom. I went quickly up the stairs and I opened the door. I could barely see anything for the next twenty seconds because of the tears. But what I had glanced at was enough. I hid in my room, in the darkest corner of my closet, holding Mr. Teddy tight to my chest, and I started properly crying. I couldn’t chase away the image of my mother lying in a pool of blood on the immaculate white of the bed, while my father hit her with one of those huge bats he was sometimes playing around with.
My innocent and limited imagination conceived no explanation for the horrible thing I had just seen. I refused the reality of the scene because my charmed inner world allowed me to. I prayed that I would wake up and enjoy a beautiful spring morning. Of course, that didn’t happen. Two hours later I dared get out of the closet and when I went to the window, I saw the ambulance in front of the house. I had seen one on TV so many times, but I couldn’t react at first. When I saw they were taking my mother away, I started down the stairs as fast as possible, because I wanted to go with her. It was too late, though. The ambulance had just left – I could still see it – and my father sat on the porch.
He probably heard me coming, because he turned around immediately. He came to me and reached his arms out, as he used to do when he wanted me to hug him. I refused because his face looked strange to me. I was afraid of him. I held my teddy bear tight in my weak arms and I told him I wanted to see my mother. Maybe I was expecting him to pick me up and say I could see her that very moment. He came towards me staggering and hit me. I fell on the living room floor and then noticed the blood that came out of my nose. I watched him going up the stairs, barely being able to stand. I got Mr. Teddy back from the corner where he had landed in a position that, under different circumstances, would have seemed hilarious to me. I went outside, trying to avoid the heavy smell of alcohol my father had left behind.
At that moment – the first from the many I would be the witness of in the next five years – I knew I would hate him for the rest of my life. Maybe if he tried to make it better, or change in any way, I could have found a way not to. But I was only a child whose perfect world had crumbled down and who couldn’t do anything about it.
The violent scenes in my home multiplied. I kept hearing the fights; I gradually began to understand the accusations they made to each other and eventually the hits, but I still couldn’t understand why that was happening. I couldn’t help asking myself every day: “Why don’t mommy and daddy love each other anymore?” That much was obvious, even to me. I tried to ask my mother, but every time I got the same annoying answer: “You’re too young to understand. But you don’t need to think about this. I promise it’ll be ok.”
I couldn’t wait to grow up, to understand the meaning of the disaster around me. Meanwhile, I learned to stay out of his way, when noticing he could not keep his balance very well. I didn’t always manage that, so I often had to make up all kinds of lies for the people who asked what had happened to me. I felt so bad that I couldn’t wear short skirts anymore, like all the other girls in school. I always wore long pants and big t-shirts, trying to hide the bruises that didn’t have time to heal before I had new ones.
One summer, when I was thirteen, he kept me locked in the basement for two weeks. I had started standing up to him and he didn’t like it that I tried to draw his attention so that he wouldn’t hit mom anymore. Taking advantage of the fact that my mother was at work, he locked me down there in the dark, without food or water. He did it because he was evil, because he hated me. He knew I had always been afraid of the dark. I still am. I still can’t fall asleep without a dim light on.
Still, I was lucky. He had forgotten that my mother kept winter supplies in there. I opened cans of carrots and green beans and ate. I still needed light, though. I couldn’t sleep in the dark. I paced back and forth, always finding small corners I hadn’t checked before. I couldn’t think about anything beautiful, as they had told us in school to do when we were afraid. The idea that the deep darkness would give birth to a horrible monster consumed me. He got me out of there eventually. He probably wouldn’t have done it if my mother hadn’t had the courage to remind him in one of the few peaceful moments he had. When he saw me still alive, he beat me up so bad that I had to be taken to the hospital.
A few months later, towards the end of November, something strange enough happened. The weather was bleak, it had started to rain since early morning and it hadn’t stopped by two o’clock, when my mother came to my room and said:
“Princess, will you get dressed really nice in a few minutes? We’re going to the park.”
She closed the door and let me get dressed. While I looked at my closet, not knowing what mom had really meant by “nice,” I thought about him. I had heard him leaving the house and he wasn’t back yet. And after all, that was no weather for a walk in the park. But I didn’t dare ask my mom anything, maybe because of the indefinite feeling that something important was going to happen.
I had noticed my mother wasn’t crying that much anymore, she had stopped begging for forgiveness, she had stopped telling him how much she loved him. All this was confusing to me, but what could I do? There were moments when I desperately wanted to be a boy. I could have prevented him from hurting my mother. But I was just a thirteen-year-old girl who was learning to survive.
I eventually chose the blue over-rolls that my mother had secretly given to me as a birthday present, and that I had never worn before. She smiled when she saw me, but only later did I realize that she wasn’t really smiling because of me. She drove to the park without saying a word. I wanted to ask her something, but it seemed that my words were stuck in my throat. She heard my thoughts, or so I thought at the time, because she told me, while trying to reach for my forehead with her soft comforting hand: “Wouldn’t you like to have a brother?” “Mommy is going to have a baby?” I thought, already imagining the little one who would cry and scream, waking everybody up in the middle of the night. I didn’t have time to answer anything, because mom stopped the car and told me to get out. We passed the big gate and walked towards the playground. The rain kept falling from the sky, like tears of a god watching over me.
I was still wondering what we were doing there when I noticed the two figures. I knew all of a sudden that they were waiting for us, but I didn’t recognize them. I had never seen them before. My mother hugged them both. The tall man whispered something in her ear, making her smile, and the little boy – who was probably my age – kissed her on the cheek and told her he had missed her. Then my mother introduced me. I didn’t care much about the man’s name, as I didn’t understand what he had to do with us.
But Eric seduced me from the first moment with his blue eyes. We went to sit on a bench under a tree. It didn’t help much, but at least there was the feeling of being somehow protected. We stayed there for almost an hour, carrying on the silliest conversation I had ever had. I liked Eric. I found out that we attended the same school and the same music club, without ever noticing each other. My mother’s conversation with that man was of no interest to me, so I didn’t pay much attention to her words: “Ok, you convinced me. I’ll file a complaint the first chance I get. There must be a way…”
The chance she was talking about appeared later that same day. He was home when we got there. He was obviously angry when he was asking mom where we had been, and when he realized she was lying, he started the usual routine, hitting her. He stopped after a few minutes to take another sip from the bottle he held. Seizing the moment, mom dragged me behind her, at the same time getting the phone, too. We locked ourselves in one of the closets in the hallway and, while my father was hitting the doors with a golf club, she dialed 911. I was so confused I didn’t hear much. I saw her put the phone down and then she held me, covering my ears with her hands to prevent me from hearing the mean words he yelled at us. It took us about ten minutes to hear the sirens and then mom whispered that policemen will help us be safe.
I heard them enter the house and fight my father. We both came out of the closet and after she told me to go upstairs, she sat in the kitchen with a policeman. From the top of the stairs I heard him saying: “That’s more than enough to file a complaint against him. There’s nothing to worry about anymore.” My mother thanked him and promised that she would go to the police station the next day. After that, the policeman left. I never saw my father again. A few months later, the man in the park and little Eric moved in. When they got married, I still didn’t understand how that was possible in so little time. Eric explained to me that he would be my brother and his father would be my father.
I loved Eric’s father on the spot. I liked it that he treated us both the same. On Eric’s birthday, he would bring me a present, too. On my birthday, he would get one for Eric. He took us to that park and did everything we wanted. He took us to school and picked us up, even if we had different schedules. He bought a cottage in the mountains for us to spend the winter breaks there. He never did anything to us if we did something wrong, except explain why he thought it was wrong. We never made the same mistake again.
Most of all, I liked the fact that I never saw my mother cry again. Maybe just when she was too happy. He would bring her flowers or chocolate. He used to cook for us. He made up recipes for us, sometimes he failed, but that amused everyone so much. Eric and I were always together. At school, on trips, at the movies, on holidays, we were always together. And even though we had separate rooms, we used to sleep together in my bed, pretending that it was fluffier than the one in his room.
The happiness lasted for about four years. During all this time, I had never heard one raised voice in our house. There were moments, though, when I briefly remembered the two weeks spent in the basement or one of the accidents my mother had to explain at the hospital. During one of those moments, Eric and I realized our feelings weren’t that innocent anymore.
It was one of the few nights that we didn’t sleep in the same bed. I was dreaming that my father had come back home and was threatening the four of us. I could see Eric hanging from the living room ceiling fan. I woke up and started crying so loud that I woke Eric up. He was near me the next moment. He took me in his arms and started caressing me, kissing my forehead, my cheeks and eventually my lips. It was my first kiss and I couldn’t help asking for more. I realized soon that it wasn’t his first. But that was natural, after all. He was seventeen, he was good-looking and his blue eyes could have seduced any girl. I knew a lot of them myself. He told me he was in love with me. I told him the same thing but that somehow made him stop. He went to his room and came back with a pack of cigarettes. He lit one and, standing by the window, he started explaining me that his feelings now were very different than those he had for me where we were kids.
He really was in love with me but had never found the moment to tell me. He had been with so many girls hoping that would somehow help him forget or discover he was wrong.
“When I kissed you just now, I knew you felt the same way. Maybe you’ll refuse to believe it, but that won’t last long.”
I was confused. He was right, maybe more than he imagined. I was the one avoiding the reality of the situation.
“What will they say when they find out?” I asked him.
He threw the cigarette out the window and came near me. We lay there, covered with that soft blanket, holding hands.
“I don’t think they should find out,” he replied.
“But we can’t do that. We’re brother and sister,” I showed him my fears.
“We’re not really brother and sister, not by blood,” he said. “We’re not doing anything wrong. I already thought about it.” He seemed so sure of himself, that I stopped questioning what we were doing at that very moment.
A few days later, during the weekend, we spent our real first night together, taking advantage of the fact that our parents had left for the mountains. They wanted to get the cottage ready, to celebrate there their fifth wedding anniversary. It happened fast, as I was rather inexperienced, but that was a one-time thing. That night, after having a cigarette, Eric fell asleep with his head on my thighs. From above, moonlight fell gently on his curly black hair. My mind couldn’t think straight. Any rational thoughts had just vanished. I didn’t look for justifications and I didn’t try to understand how that had happened. My teenage love was enough. There was nothing else.
We lived like that through the last year of high school. My mother seemed to suspect something. She tried to get me to talk almost every morning.
“You seem happier than the usual,” she would say while making tea or coffee.
Eric would come down from his room and we would smile at each other.
“I think you’re in love,” she would go on, but I never confirmed it.
Then she would look at Eric, notice the smile and attack him: “And you know something about it. You definitely know something. But you’re on your sister’s side. You’re not going say anything, are you?”
She would leave us alone, seeing that she couldn’t make us talk, but only until the next morning. We could often hear her behind us, while we were getting in Eric’s car.
“Kids! Why don’t they ever talk to us?”
Eric wasn’t at all concerned with the way we lived. I was the one doing that. I was the one living with the fear of being caught. I had tried to get him to talk to me so many times, but Eric’s way of postponing things had gotten to me too. And nothing would have probably happened if mom hadn’t seen us holding hands while sitting in the swing behind the house. She looked at us funny, but she didn’t say anything. She started watching us carefully from then on. She would go into our bedrooms without knocking, especially when she knew we were together. She would check the parties we went to and show up at school when we least expected it.
Eventually, I was the one to give in. I needed to talk to someone. I had decided to tell mom the truth, but I still needed Eric’s approval.
“No, there is no way she can know about this,” his definite answer was.
“But we must do something. I can’t go on living like this. This is not what I want for us.”
“Do you think I like it? Do you think it amuses me that I can’t just go outside and scream as loud as I can that I’m in love with you? That you belong to me? I’m trying to think about…”
“We won’t be able to be together forever, even if we don’t have the same blood…as far as the law is concerned, we are related…brother and sister. Unless our parents break up…”
I didn’t even realize saying the last sentence. It just slipped. I didn’t think Eric would take it seriously. I didn’t believe him when he told me he had something in mind, something to make them break up. He didn’t want to say more, and I didn’t insist. I hoped he hadn’t been serious. He brought it up again, several days later, at school.
“I’ve got it,” he said, obviously very happy. “We just have to prove mom that dad isn’t the man she thinks he is. It would be enough to make her give him up.”
“I don’t know, Eric, she’s so in love with him.”
“She’ll stop loving him when she finds out he tried to rape her daughter.”
I didn’t realize it at first, but the more he explained it to me, the more it made sense. Of course I tried to make him give it up. I begged him to just go away to some place where they wouldn’t find us. It would have been less painful, but Eric wanted this to go his way or no way.
I hesitated, but the thought of being with him without having anyone asking questions got through to me. My selfish inner self was more important to me than anything else. So I went to his dad’s office. We talked about the car I wanted so much. He agreed to buy me any model I wanted. After our conversation was over, I stepped out and, taking advantage of the fact that the secretary was not there, I tore the sleeves of my blouse and the short skirt I had on. I spoiled my make-up just in time to be seen by the secretary. She was very nice to me and she offered to help. My performance was pretty good, she really believed me.
I was in the same state when I got home. Mom was in the kitchen, baking a complicated nauseous cake for her husband. At first, I pretended nothing happened. But she insisted and so I had to tell her. There was no point in keeping something so important from my own mother, was it? She couldn’t believe it at first, but she figured I had no reason whatsoever to lie to her. A scandal immediately followed. Eric and I hid at the top of the stairs; we locked hands and listened carefully. Everything seemed to be going the right way.
They didn’t talk to each other for a few days. I felt guilty. I kept thinking about how unhappy my mom had been before. Now she would be like that again. Because of me. How could I do something like that to her?
One day I noticed they didn’t fight anymore. I didn’t understand what was happening. I was happy because Eric and I were going to get married. I knew they wouldn’t be able to do anything about that. We were to leave right after the ceremony. We had arranged everything and when Eric went to settle a date with the neighborhood chapel, I called them both to the living room. I asked them to forgive me for all the lies and trouble I had cause between them and I explained to them why I had done it.
Contrary to what I expected, they seemed to take it pretty well. That’s only because they already knew. Mom had found my diary. All I understood was that they had been discussing it and had decided to support us. I couldn’t believe it. If only I had known that before, so many things wouldn’t have happened. We were all happy. I told them about our plans and about the dreams we had while trying to keep everything secret. We were interrupted by the phone-ring. Eric’s dad picked it up. When he came back, I was standing by the window, wondering what took Eric so long. He told me to sit down. I could see he was troubled. He couldn’t hold back his tears when he told us that there had been an accident. Eric’s car had been caught in a pile up. The paramedics weren’t able to take him out in time.
I don’t even know how the next two weeks passed. Everybody was trying to comfort me. “I’m so sorry about your brother. He was a wonderful young man.” But no one could really understand the true nature of my pain. I would sit for hours on end in the swing behind the house, while potential buyers looked around. I couldn’t live where everything constantly reminded me of my love for Eric. It was too hard for the two of them, too.
I will have to find the strength to begin again, to make a new life, new dreams. I just wanted to sit here for a few more moments, to feel what you normally feel when you have to leave a place behind. I know I will never forget Eric, even if I will love someone else, which I very much doubt will happen. Nothing will be the same again. Nothing.