The Girl with the Crystal Eyes

by Barbara Baraldi

  The first time she dreamed of red, the most blood she had seen up till then was when she scraped her knee outside her house. She fell as she got off her bicycle, because it was a bit too big for her. But she liked that because it made her feel more grown-up. She can't even remember how old she was.

  It stung but she didn't cry. She just stared at it.

  She looked at the grazed skin. She looked at the gravel that had gone into her knee, and that her mother then tried to extract with tweezers.

  There was very little blood. But it was red: a colour that had somehow excited her.

  Afterwards, she was left trembling slightly. Her mother thought it was because her daughter had had a scare, and made her a camomile tea with lots of honey.

  She dreamed that very same night.

  A road. And a pool of blood. She can see it there, in front of her, even now.

  It wasn't red like the blood on her knee; it was more like a dense brown.

  She woke up, crying out with fear.

  For a long time her mother had stroked her forehead, which was damp with sweat, to make her go back to sleep. She sang softly, quietly - a story about a little girl who was too tiny to live in the world of adults, and who was always in danger of being trodden on.

  'Poor baby, so tiny,' sang her mother, till in the end deep breathing took the place of her daughter's shallow and troubled gasps.

  The day after that, they found the neighbour's dog.

  Tom. He always ran free and played with all the children in the neighbourhood.

  She had been holding on to her mother's leg and they were just going out; her mother was taking her to school. Then her mother yelled out her father's name, and at the same time pushed her daughter firmly back into the house.

  From inside she could hear the neighbours shouting. At some point she ran outside.

  What was left of Tom was a cascade of entrails falling from his ripped-open stomach, and soaked in his own blood.

  For days she kept seeing that image. The real one, not the one from her dream. She couldn't understand it.

  She just knew that it was the same image - and that it terrified her.

  She stares at the whiteness of the ceiling. Last night she dreamed of red.

  Blood. Blood everywhere. Staining everything. Light.

  And roses. Roses dipping their delicate petals in that sacred liquid.

  It seemed to her that she could even smell it.

  The sweetness of the blooming flowers. The sweetness of blood.

  Together, in a macabre dance.

  She hears a voice in her head calling her. All the time.

  I can't bear it. Enough. A bit of peace. Please. Inside me.

  She holds the packet of white powder between her fingers. It feels dangerous, as it always does when she holds it.

  She has seen what you do in films. She must have seen it a thousand times.

  In the end, it would be the only sure way of making everything disappear, that white powder.

  It can't be difficult.

  She pulls herself upright and stops staring at the ceiling above her. She moves her gaze from the white of the walls to the white of the packet. She puts it between her teeth and tears it open. She sniffs it. It stings her nostrils a bit and makes her eyes water for a moment.

  On the coffee table in front of her is a straw that she has cut already.

  She tips out a small pyramid of the powder. She makes a line. A snow-coloured snake slithering across the glass table-top.

  I ought to think about this. But I need to feel silence inside me. And I think it might help me. Then I'll burn it, the packet. I want to make it disappear.

  She looks into the eyes of the snake. She moves the straw towards it, to tame it.

  She sniffs hard.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  'Hi Patrick. How are you?' 'Not great, Eva. Sorry.'

  'What's wrong?'

  'I know. To be polite I should say I'm fine, but the fact is I'm not fine,' the boy answers dismally, and lowers his gaze to his skinny knees.

  'But what's happened?' repeats Eva.

  'The usual. Nothing new.'

  'For me, it's insane at work. I'm the newest person there and everyone pulls my leg.'

  'Really?'

  'Yes, really. And, trust me, it does get to me. Some days I'd happily stay in bed.'

  'It's the same for me at school… but there's one guy in particular.'

  'There's always someone in particular who ruins your life. It's true for everyone.'

  'No, I don't believe it happens to everyone.'

  'Well, it's true for people like us, quiet people who don't want to bother anyone, who just mind their own business.'

  'Yes, it is like that. So why doesn't everyone else just live their own lives?'

  'Because sometimes it's better to live other people's. It's easier.'

  'Let's start now. No more chatting.'

  A bit of running round the room. Jumping on the spot. Stretching.

  Eva thinks about how it is true: someone takes the trouble to force their way into your life, and destroys it. Destroys the balance you have established.

  Everything changes. Even the colour of your eyes. She's sure of that.

  The colour of her own eyes has changed.

  Press-ups.

  It's like a vase that falls and breaks. You can stick it back together, but it's never quite the same as it was before.

  Exercises in pairs.

  Eva joins up with her friend.

  She holds the cushion first. He hits it angrily.

  He lacks co-ordination. She has to try to guess what he's going to do so she can cover herself and not be hit. He's like a missile without a target, putting too much force into his punches. Force without control is useless.

  'Eva, at school, that person I was telling you about before…' And he throws a punch, but swings his arm out too wide. Any opponent would have time to land a direct hit and knock him flat before his hook connects. 'I don't mind when he insults me, but he insults someone I care for very much.' 'Patrick, punch straighten'

  'I can't stand it any more.'

  'I know what you mean. But you have to have a bit of patience in this world…'

  'I'd give anything to make him stop, when he starts insulting her the way he does.'

  'Try to raise your leg a bit more when you kick.'

  'I wish he'd never mention her again, my mother, never.' Another semicircle that loses its momentum before he even lands the punch.

  'Change over!'

  Patrick takes the cushion.

  Eva puts the gloves on.

  'You're right, Patrick. You can't do anything about it.'

  He looks at her, downcast. Even his only friend is saying he can't do anything. And therefore he's not worth anything.

  As Eva throws a right-hander, the force of the blow makes him step backwards.

  'As a fellow student, you'd risk being expelled if you touched him, wouldn't you?'

  The boy smiles, thinking for a second that what Eva is saying is true, that she didn't say it just to make him feel better, to boost his morale, but because he really could beat up Stefano if he wanted to, but he doesn't do so because he doesn't want to cause problems for himself.

  'Listen, Patrick, what school do you go to?'

  'That's enough chatting. What's up with you two today?' The coach stares over at them.

  Eva does a high kick.

  'Righi. Why?'

  'Because…'

  'Silence, there! Eva, right, you can train with Lara. Patrick with Luca. I'll have to split you up, like kids. Now, when I clap my hands you do a middle kick: one, two three. Now high kicks: one, two, three.'

  Eva gets her anger off her chest. Every kick fills her with adrenalin, recharges her. She feels the force of her blows against the leather cushion, which the girl with plaits is struggling to hold on to, and tries to make them even more powerful and precise. The part of the lesson she likes
best is towards the end: free fighting. That's when she has the opportunity to compete with a person, flesh and blood, not a stuffed sack, so she can't make any mistakes because, if she does, she risks being kicked or punched. And in those moments she gets the opportunity to challenge her own fear. To let herself get hurt.

  . She studies her opponent and doesn't ever consider that, when all's said and done, it's just a training exercise; she thinks the person in front of her wants to hurt her, and then her eyes change colour and she becomes a lioness.

  'Eva, wait a minute.' The coach is looking serious.

  Shit, here we go. He's going to tell me off.

  'There's no sense in you staying with this course.'

  'But… it won't happen again.'

  'You've improved a lot. From next Tuesday come to the advanced course. I'll see you at eight instead of seven.'

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  She can't do it again.

  Too little time has passed. She has to be careful. He could walk in on her at any moment. But he won't.

  Marco has gone out again, but there's something else… He's not his usual self. They haven't made love for days.

  That's never happened before. Perhaps it really is over between them. She wanders backwards and forwards across the room, unable to settle. She throws herself on to the sofa and tries to find a bit of warmth by hugging a cushion. She still feels cold, and she hears the voice. The voice inside her.

  Instinctively she brings her fingers to her mouth. She tries to find a piece of fingernail. Biting her nails would calm her down, but there's nothing to get hold of. She looks at her hands. Her nails no longer exist. They are just stumps that go straight into her flesh. Her hands look horrible; she thinks they are hideous.

  No wonder Marco won't touch me any more - I'm disgusting.

  She studies her nails again and bursts into tears. She jumps to her feet and goes into the bathroom.

  She fetches something, then comes back and sits down in the living room, this time on the chair standing in the corner.

  She starts brushing nail polish on to what's left of her nails with their reddish edges. She cries as she skims the brush over them. She shouldn't bite them like that any more. This is the last time. Now they'll grow properly and she won't touch them again. Enough is enough. This time it's final. She won't bite them ever again. She still cries.

  There is soon more polish on her skin than on her nails, but she thinks they already look much better.

  Yesterday Marco ate quickly and had his shower straight after lunch. Usually he doesn't take a shower early in the afternoon. He has one in the evening before he goes out, or on Sunday if they have made love in the morning, to wash her smell off his skin.

  Yesterday, Marco was behaving strangely. He didn't even notice that she had put on her black bangles again, the plastic ones. She has had them since she was a girl, when she was a Madonna fan. She used to think she looked so beautiful with her bangles. They went up almost to her elbow.

  The made her feel good, and they hid everything.

  Because even back then she was like she is now, but with Marco she had to stop, because he hasn't let her wear her bangles.

  'They look like gaskets Or something,' he would say, 'and I don't want you wearing them. I'll buy you gold ones once I'm rich.'

  She needed to put her bangles on again, and he hasn't even noticed.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  The kids are spreading across the street like a multicoloured stain. They chatter and shout as they walk along under the weight of their rucksacks. Watching their behaviour, the way they move and communicate, you can tell which ones have already had a tough life - as well as those who never will, the bastards and the bimbos of tomorrow.

  Patrick is hunched over, not looking at anyone. He walks quickly, as if he's trying to get away from something. Or someone.

  That someone soon catches up with him.

  'Hey, shit face. Hey, I'm talking to you. Turn round.'

  Stefano has a spring in his step. He still has a strong southern accent, and his lips are always fixed in a grin. He doesn't look people in the eye when he talks to them - not because he's shy but because he has no respect for them.

  'Hey! I'm talking to you. Are you going to turn round, you son of a bitch, or do I have to make you?'

  Patrick stops. There is no escape - there never is.

  He looks up at the boy for a second, then goes back to staring at the pavement.

  Then someone else speaks: 'Hey, dickhead, you don't talk to my brother like that! Don't you know he does martial arts? Don't you know that the only reason he doesn't give you a good kicking is because he doesn't want to get suspended just because of a dickhead like you? So shut your mouth before any more shit comes out of it.'

  The boy is frozen to the spot. The usual scenario, with him in charge, has been cut short. He looks round and realises that everyone is watching him as he gets it from this cow, blonde and slender, with ice-cold eyes and her sweatshirt hood pulled up over her head, she clenches her fists as she stands staring at him.

  'Oh, so you're another one -'

  Eva is suddenly standing just an inch away from him and his words come abruptly to a halt.

  'You can say whatever you want about your own mother, but not ours,' she says, lifting her chin.

  He doesn't know what to do. Eva snatches the stiff cardboard folder from his hands and says: 'Watch and learn.'

  A crowd of students surrounds them. Eva moves closer to Patrick, and whispers: 'Just like in the training sessions.'

  Then she says 'high kick' and holds up the folder.

  For a moment Patrick doesn't move, but then, swivelling from the pelvis, he kicks the target. She carries on, prompting him with 'low', 'middle', and he hits the folder each time with all the force he can muster. And for once his co-ordination is spot on. For once his kicks are direct and sharp. He's not ploughing a field, as the coach always jokes about him.

  This morning Patrick feels that his legs are actually part of him. He's no longer stiff like a Playmobil figure, its legs remaining straight even when you try to make them sit down.

  He is a champion now, with his legs are made of flesh and bone, not wood. He's not a puppet any more, and he kicks that fucking folder with all the strength that's inside him.

  Soon the sheets of paper start to fly everywhere. The folder is totally destroyed, in tatters.

  'I've told my brother not to worry if one of these days we get a letter from the headmaster to say he's been suspended. Anyway, I'm old enough to be the one who signs stuff for him. Today is the last time you ever speak to him. You hear what I'm saying? The last time.'

  Then Eva takes Patrick by the arm and they walk off together, leaving Stefano surrounded by a cloud of laughter, trying to collect the sheets of paper that are fluttering down the street.

  'I don't believe it. I did it! You made me do it. He was speechless!' Patrick says, incredulous.

  'I didn't do anything. It was you that smashed that creep's folder. Just think now, if your mother knew you could defend yourself like that, she'd be so proud of you.'

  Patrick believes that his mother has seen what he did, because from up there she is always watching him, though she never says anything. She just smiles.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Marconi is in a bad mood today, and currently when he's in a bad mood, it's always got something to do with the Black Widow investigation.

  The fact is that, over the last few days, so many of his ideas seem to have been proved right, and the profile of the murderer has started to materialise out of the fog of clues and hunches, even if the details still aren't totally clear.

  That murder in the Carracci area has also recently been attributed to her. It was obviously her first time, because she had to strike the victim five times before killing him - a savage cut to the throat with a small yellow Stanley knife, which she left next to the body.
Since then she has gradually refined her methods, becoming more skilful - and more lethal.

  One decisive blow, by now she never gets her hands dirty. And the choice of weapon is never accidental. A sharp razor in the case of the lorry driver. No fingerprints. Some sort of antique sharpened specially for the occasion. Then the hairpin, used like a dagger.

  She prepares her weapons in advance and goes into the city like a huntress.

  Marconi doesn't agree with the profile drawn up by the psychologist: an extremely cold person; someone who has developed a feeling of hatred towards a father figure, and therefore towards all men. For him, she's not a woman who is indifferent, rather she's determined.

  Determined to clean up the streets, as if that's an act of revenge.

  She goes out armed and ready, but perhaps in her heart she hopes she won't meet anyone intent on doing evil. Yet she always does encounter someone, although her provocative way of dressing certainly helps.

  The description from the waitress in the service station matches what they later told him at the nightclub: slightly over one metre sixty tall, blonde, red lips, light-coloured eyes and sexy clothes. A girl who definitely doesn't go unnoticed.

  But since he talked to the weirdo selling the hairpins, everything seems to have gone back to square one. Marconi is annoyed, confused. He's virtually certain that the weapon was one of the guy's hairpins, that much is true. The vendor instantly recognised the gem as one of his.

  'My jewels are like my children,' he had said. 'I could pick them out from a whole pile of others.'

  But then he had added a few details about the girl which Marconi wasn't expecting. Marconi doesn't, however, have too much confidence in what he was told - the hippie seemed more interested in trying every possible angle to scrounge a drink from him - but at the same time he can't get out of his mind the way the guy described her.

  A girl of medium height, possibly blonde, with an anonymous face, but above all he claimed to remember her well because he had felt a violent dislike towards her.