The possibility that Aris is the killer has been excluded from his bets, as he considers him to be unable to commit murder. So simply. How easy is it to refute Peter Deligiannis’s allegations? How easy is it to convince him that he may be wrong?
‘‘What are we going to do with Aris?’’ I have to try.
‘‘You heard what he said…’’ Peter says and shows the door. ‘‘Anyway, as I told you before, I don’t believe he is involved…’’
Antonella’s style can be compared to the despair of an innocent person who is imprisoned unjustly. If she had the authority, she would have already sent the composer behind the prison bars.
‘‘I have been listening to you for so long and I feel like we are talking in different languages… How is it possible to find a person beside a corpse, with a memory stick containing a melody on it and him being a composer and yet set him free? Peter, I think that this time your obsession to reject the obvious will set free a person who may be now planning his next murder,’’ she says, and I think that for the first time in these two months I hear her voice so loudly.
He opens the drawer, takes out some scores, and places them on his desk. The past is in front of his eyes. He does not know if he should dig it up, but he feels the need to do so. He takes the family photo in his hands. His people. His life. Now they are gone. He would give anything to make them happy, that is why he chose the least pain for them. He considers he did not have the right to force them wait with him for his death. He caresses the photo and buries it again in the drawer. He closes it hurriedly. The sound rings like slapping on his brain. He locks it.
He is tired. He goes to the bed with his clothes on. He takes his mobile out of the pocket and sees twenty-two unanswered calls from Ioannis and twelve from Nektarios. Ioannis is always more worried. Before he has time to call them back, his eyelids become heavy and he hugs the pillow.
He opens his eyes feeling an indeterminate heat. His face is burning. He touches his forehead, but it is cool. He looks around him. He is in a square room. On the one wall, there is a long narrow window with a purple curtain which is flattering like a cold breeze is blowing on it. On the other, he sees a door. The other two walls are covered by glass that separates the room from a white void.
It smells like ash. He lowers his eyes on the floor and sees scattered cinders around him. His body is dominated by high temperature. There is a fire somewhere. The stifling smell of ash bothers him. He approaches the window. He pulls the curtain and sees a figure approaching a blonde man. The figure starts taking a more specific form and he recognizes Julia in its face. She comes in front of the blonde man.
He sees himself. He is sitting with her in Ostankino Park announcing he wants them to divorce. If hell could be visualized, he would give it exactly this image. His body freezes. His legs tremble. He hurriedly closes the curtain. He spins around himself, immersed in a vortex bounded by a ring of fire.
The cinders crystallize. The floor becomes an ice rink with cracks. He rubs his hands. His breath is steaming. He approaches the door with careful steps. The knob is very cold. He pulls his long-sleeved blouse to touch it.
Outside the room, he faces a stormy sea. The salt hits his face and rejuvenates it. The sound of the waves composes a melody whose composer is the nature. He distinguishes Nektarios sitting next to Ioannis by the shore. They are looking at him from afar. The sea is raising a tide. He is shouting to warn them, but they disappear. He closes the door to be protected from the wave rushing fiercely to his shelter.
His back hugs the wall. His look falls on the glasses. Behind them, he sees Natalie’s room now. He proceeds forward. He is trying to spot the corpse. The cracks on the ground do not let him approach. He feels a touch on his shoulder. He turns and sees Natalie alive in front of his eyes.
‘‘Did you believe even for a moment that I wouldn’t recognize you, Mr. Vladimirov?’’
He opens his eyes. He supports his weight on the elbows, but he doesn’t realize he is on the edge of the bed and falls onto the floor. This fall is exactly what he needed to recover from his nightmare.
He rubs his eyes with the back of his palm. His head buzzes. He freezes. He heats. He hears his name. He returns to reality and follows the knock on the door.
Ioannis’s shouts could cause someone call the police. ‘‘Are you OK? Where were you?’’ He shakes Dima from his shoulders and leaves a breath of relief before starting shouting again. ‘‘Do you want to madden us?’’
Nektarios pats him on the back with a reassuring nod and closes the door. The two young men are waiting for a word from Dima.
‘‘We saw the news about Natalie’s murder,’’ Nektarios says.
‘‘What happened? The whole country is buzzing!’’ Ioannis is yelling. ‘‘Dima, please tell us you have no connection with this…’’
The great composer overtakes his troubled friend and observes the lyricist’s calmness, which seem to be fostering traces of suspicion. He hates this look. He is sure that none of them trust him. ‘‘Do you believe the same?’’ he asks Nektarios directly. The lyricist raises his chin and tries to look at him in the eyes. ‘‘Forget it, you don’t need to answer…’’
‘‘I don’t believe it, Dima, damn it! I don’t believe it! But where were you these past two days?’’ he breaks his silence, and the suspicion takes the form of despair on his face.
Dima recalls his dream. Ioannis and Nektarios with their backs turned on him. He is ready to speak to them about everything that happened at the police department, but a part of him prefers to keep his silence.
Orpheus Nomikos is listening with abstract attention to Danaos, ignoring his son.
‘‘There was a man in her house when they found the corpse, but they let him free.’’
Orpheus is pointing at his lips with the index finger. Aris is looking at the photo above his father’s head. He poses hugging Natalie, the day she was admitted in the university. He remembers that day in every detail. The pride on his father’s face has been immortalized in Aris’s eyes in a more permanent way than that of the photo. This is the look he has been seeking throughout his life and he believes he won’t be able to get it. Natalie was his addiction, his beloved daughter. If his father’s reaction to her death is this cold look, he can’t imagine his expression if he himself passes away.
‘‘They got a warrant for her phone privacy. I will have immediate information about the slightest finding. Deligiannis is a wasp, but the Department has many minions who speak easily. I will inform you about every development, Orpheus.’’
A murmur of condescension is the answer of the strict politician. He seems to have lost his power. The lawyer leaves Nomikos’s villa, and Aris rushes to follow him.
‘‘Where are you going?’’
He turns his back in surprise and sees his father approaching him. ‘‘I want to go for a walk.’’ Report. Mandate. Implementation. The memories are piercing like a bullet through Aris’s mind, to remind him of his eternal obedience to his father.
‘‘I want to be unaffected by all this on Saturday. We will add a text about your sister at the beginning of your speech and then you will proceed normally with what we have prepared,’’ he is giving him orders again. New order. ‘‘Tomorrow at the funeral only I will speak to the reporters, but you will be constantly next to me.’’
He wants to react, to talk to him, to express his rage at his cold response to Natalie’s death. He wants to ask him why he is not sad. He wants to ask him if he knows who killed her.
‘‘Do you remember what we’ve said?’’
He remembers. He remembers the modified words that play within the permissible limits of plausibility.
‘‘If we break up now, we are done. I will find out who did it, but it’s not up to you. I want you to stay undisturbed in our purpose. Even the slightest mistake may cost your image. I know what I will do. The police can’t help,’’ he states and reveals to his son the recruitment of a personal detective to his son.
All these words sound to Aris as an additional fuss in his already troubled world. If Natalie was next to him, she would disapprove of him, emphasizing how absent-minded he is, which is passing unnoticed at the moment by his father. If his mother was next to him, she would recognize his sadness and would approach him to offer her help. There are still moments he believes that if she was still near him, he would find the strength to confront everything.
‘‘In the speech, you will be sad, but you won’t lose your dynamic. You will present sad for society. You will convey your compassion, your rage, and your indignation at all that are happening in the last two years. Our goal is for the crowd to identify with your thoughts. As we have said, you won’t name the culprits. Everyone knows who is in power. You have to make them trust you, to gain their appreciation. To look reliable.’’
Aris knows the truth is too naked to come forward. He cannot be exposed. ‘‘I will do exactly what you have told me.’’ The words move on his lips with the flow of a memorized knowledge.
‘‘Look Aris…I know you are upset with your sister’s death. It is a difficult moment. Don’t let them destroy us. You mustn’t let them destroy us.’’ The incentive turns into another order which is placed on top of Aris’s shoulder and leads him out of his father’s office.
The inner battle between lies and truths comes out in overtime.
Dancing is the secret language of the soul
Peter is sitting in the dining room on-task on the laptop screen. ‘‘She seems to have kept her personal life away from publicity. Except for the news of her death, there is only one more photo from Sideris’s wedding she had gone to with her father.’’
‘‘So, we will have to wait for Antonella’s findings from the research she is doing on the phone data. I am a little worried about her reaction. I wonder if the move with the composer was quick.’’
‘‘The apartment in which he said he is hosted in is under constant surveillance. We can’t do much and you know it. I will try to find more about him and his life in Russia.’’
I join the thumb with the index finger. giving him the green light. ‘‘I’m going to the kitchen to cook for you!’’ I declare overwhelmed by the veil of my coming failure, which I take care to cover with a sweet smile.
‘‘I didn’t expect to hear that… In any case there is also a spare plate with my grandmother’s saganaki from yesterday,’’ he says and I repeat inside my mind the phrase: I have already failed.
‘‘I am going to impress you this time, Mr. Deligiannis…’’ I prepare him for a gastronomy climax, fishing my mobile phone from my bag.
I am looking for the recipe I stored in the bookmarks yesterday. Beef fillet with black cherry sauce. It sounds delicious and easy. Having procured all the ingredients, I am reading the instructions.
In a non-stick frying pan, we put the olive oil to heat and we sauté the onion and garlic until they wither.
I take out a pan, which I cannot understand if it is non-stick, but in no case am I going to ask Peter. I estimate about 1/3 of a cup of olive oil and I throw it in. I chop with great success an onion and two cloves of garlic and I throw these as well in the pan. I stop at the first unknown word. We sautè. A series of questions are placed one after the other.
Sautèing means frizzling? And frizzling means frying?
I raise my chin, covering my disappointment with self-confidence, wishing Peter stays away from the kitchen. I shake the pan, making irregular movements anti-clockwise, of course without trying to turn the content upside down, like renowned chefs do.
I type in the search engine the explanation of the verb ‘‘sautè’’ and I continue shaking the pan to the beat of my nervousness.
By the term sautèing, we mean the baking of food such as meat or vegetables or fruit, in a little hot fat (e.g., oil, butter) in a low utensil (e.g. pan).
So, sautèing means I cook meat or vegetables in oil. And when is it ready? The observation of a blackened version of a chopped onion gives me the answer. I remove the pan from the kitchen eye, completing sautèing. I do not know if I achieved its purpose, which is the maintenance of the liquids of the vegetables as it is stated on the cooking site, however my judge will be Peter and not a famous cook. The thought that I would prefer the latter locks in the subconscious.
In a small saucepan, we put wine, cranberry juice, black cherry jam, 150 ml. water, and simmer, stirring, in medium heat for five minutes.
I prepare the cherry sauce easily and proceed to the roasting of the meat. After an hour of personal battle, I manage to serve in the dining room a crispy, dry, and hard beef fillet, a salty-sweet potato puree, and a cherry sauce very capable of raising the glucose levels of whoever tastes it.
I would definitely have had better results, if the recipe mentioned the baking time, instead of we cook the meat for a few minutes, turning it upside down at intervals, until it browns on all its sides, and if it clarified the exact amount of salt for the puree. A pinch of salt was probably not such an efficient way of measuring. About the sauce, I have no excuse.
‘‘Well?’’
I am anxiously awaiting for his verdict. Something tells me he will reward my first, generous attempt to cook him something special and tasty for him. My inner proud princess, however, has fallen laughing on the floor.
He first tastes the meat. He lets the fork next to the plate, after his unsuccessful battle with it and tastes a little of the puree. I am waiting for him to sour his face, as an answer to this trialing taste test.
‘‘For the first time…’’ he says and for a moment I feel happy believing he will probably applaud my effort.
‘‘… they don’t cook such dishes, Magda! A better choice would be spaghetti. You know, those you throw on the wall to see if they are ready?’’ he is mocking me with a sweet tone, which, however, doesn’t satisfy me. ‘‘OK. Don’t get disappointed. It’s edible. With difficulty of course, but we won’t be hungry.’’
I raise my head proudly, without answering and I attempt to cut the meat, trying not to throw the fillet on him. ‘‘What did you find?’’
‘‘Nothing more than what Andrew brought us. He is famous in Russia. His name figures in the greatest music scenes. Unknown personal life, he seems to be keeping these things to himself. Sincerely, I don’t believe he committed the murder. There is no motive. If we confirm what he told us and they really first met two days ago, then we will be even surer of the existence of a well-established plot.’’
I still support Aris’s guilt, but I do not want to perplex the investigation more. This time I will let Peter solve the mystery. I overpass my thoughts and focus on his sour reaction to every testing of the sauce.
Tonight, my favourite nanny, cook and friend will take care of the children at her home along with their grandfather. Not that I am not a good cook and mother, but if grandma Barbara wasn’t in our life, I would have resigned from work, I would have sunk into a pile of non-ironed clothes and I would have searched in Google the interpretation of every cooking terminology. It is a blessing to have someone to help you, especially when you have complete confidence in him or her. Especially when you don’t know what ‘‘sautè’’ means.
Peter is unbuttoning his white shirt in front of the full-length mirror, which I recently bought for our room. Every button links to a thought. His thoughtful gaze penetrates his reflection and meets the wall with his degrees on it. He is looking for the name of the killer on them.
I am sitting at the edge of the bed, licking the half of a grapefruit. He throws his shirt on the bed and checks his physical condition on the mirror. I approach him and I place the grapefruit on the bedside table. I stand behind him and I pass my hands around his waist, hugging him. His skin is warm, and its scent has the same dynamic effect on me, like the first time I met him.
‘‘Magda I’m very tired…’’ he says with a smirk voice.
‘‘This is why I’m here, to relax you.’’ I overpass his complaints kissing him on t
he neck, while holding his shoulders. He doesn’t resist. A sign to proceed.
I mess his hair and my fingers go down his chest. I touch my lips at the beginning of his backbone, and I give him vertical kisses until his waist. I peek at his expressions in the mirror. He has closed his eyes and his lips are slightly open.
I grab the grapefruit with my left hand, and I pour a little juice on my fingers. With my index finger, I aim at the centre of his waist and go with vertical kisses up to his neck again. My movement is slow, torturous, addictive. I begin a second route, same as the previous one, but in the opposite direction, trying to remove the path of grapefruit drops with my tongue.
I get up and pass my left hand around his waist and my right around his neck. Our eyes meet through the mirror again. I touch his lips with my fingers and urge him to try.
‘‘Magda what is it? Grapefruit? It’s very sour!’’ he shouts in a grunting voice.
‘‘Like you, my love…’’ I whisper in his ear, biting his lobe slightly and somehow I get revenge for the sourness he produced earlier in the dining room. The taste of the grapefruit is actually very bitter, but it becomes sweet on his body. Excitingly sweet.
I throw more drops on my fingers and I lower them to the part of his body that clearly shows me his pleasure. ‘‘You said you are the sovereign in our relationship…’’ I come in front and throw him with his back down on the bed. ‘‘Are you sure, Mr. Deligiannis?’’ I ask him and take the grapefruit in my hand.
He pulls the collar of his shirt out of his blouse. He looks at his frustrated face in the mirror. He puts the collar back inside the blouse. He frowns at his reflection contentedly. In all his life he pursued perfection. In his compositions, his partners, even in the smallest details, like this collar.
The Last Symphony Page 11
