Obsession (Year of Fire)

by Florencia Bonelli

  “You and Yasmín?” was all he could say.

  “Yes, I know, it’s strange, mostly because we got along so badly, but that was because of the tension between us. We fell in love and couldn’t admit it; I couldn’t because Yasmín is way above my station, she, because I’m five years younger and because she was Saint-Claire’s girlfriend.”

  “And what about André?”

  “She broke up with him.”

  “Ha!” Al-Saud slapped his leg and abandoned his seat. He paced around the room with a smile on his lips. “It’s incredible! You and Yasmín!”

  Sándor came over and put his hand on Al-Saud’s shoulder.

  “I know I’m not worthy of her, Eliah. But I love and respect her like no one else in the world. I’m going to make her happy, I swear.”

  “I know, Sanny.”

  As he went down the streets toward Elisée Reclus, Al-Saud remembered Huseinovic’s promise and smiled. He was happy for his sister; she had shown good judgment in ending it with André and choosing a man like Sándor.

  The corners of his lips shot downward and the rest of his face fell along with them. The memory of the night before tormented both him and Matilde. That morning she had behaved like a little frightened bird until he kissed her the way he always did and asked her how she had slept, showing that everything was going to continue as normal, even though he felt wounded and sad. He had to admit that his pride had been bruised as well. Convinced that Matilde would say yes, he had jumped without a safety net and the landing had been tough. He was still confused. What was behind her refusal? First she had denigrated marriage, like an intellectual rebelling against social mores; then, she suggested that she needed freedom to exercise her profession; finally she had admitted there were “things” in her life that she had to resolve before making that kind of decision. He was worried that Matilde would keep fixating on the issues, traumas and complexes that made her unhappy. Little by little she would gain confidence, and just as she had confessed that she couldn’t make love, she would ending up confiding the rest of her secrets to him. Putting pressure on her would be a mistake.

  He parked the Aston Martin on Avenue Elisée Reclus and rang the doorbell of his own house. Matilde came out a few minutes later. It was a pleasant day, so she wasn’t wearing her butter-colored coat, but instead a Bordeaux cardigan, a pale-yellow shirt, jeans and boots; her faithful shika—he’d finally learned the name of the rustic bag—was slung across her shoulders.

  Al-Saud was leaning on the back of the Aston Martin with his arms crossed over his chest. Ray-Ban Clippers covered his eyes. When he saw her, he slowly pushed the glasses up onto his head. Their looks entwined across the sidewalk. She was overcome by nerves, as if this was their first date. His beauty, as always, made her feel insignificant. He was gorgeous in that tight black long-sleeved shirt and white jeans. She couldn’t believe that this beautiful man loved her. She hadn’t recovered from the anxiety of the night before. Once she was sure that Al-Saud was sleeping deeply, she had gone back to the music room, lain on the carpet and relived every moment she had shared with him. She repeated his words in a whisper: “I love you, Matilde. I love you more than I ever imagined I could love another human being.” I love you too, with all my strength, my love, she finally said to herself, and burst into tears. She went back to the bedroom two hours later. Eliah was still sleeping.

  Al-Saud smiled at her from his relaxed and somewhat arrogant stance on the Aston Martin. Matilde returned the smile and came toward him. She took his offered hands and he spun her around.

  “You’re so beautiful.”

  “No, you are.”

  “What time does Juana’s flight land?”

  “Five thirty.”

  On the way to Charles de Gaulle Airport, their spirits lifted as they talked about Yasmín and Sándor. Matilde confessed her participation in the outcome of the love story, and Al-Saud admitted his blindness to the whole thing. On the way home, Juana made the backseat echo with giggles, and Eliah loved Juana all the more for making her friend laugh.

  “Mat, you can’t picture how much cash Shiloah has. He lives in a super-posh neighborhood in Tel Aviv called Ramat Aviv, and he has a mansion even bigger than the stud’s. He took me everywhere. To Jerusalem, to the Dead Sea, to Eilat, a city in the south, to the banks of the Red Sea, to Amman, the capital of Jordan…oof, we traveled so much! Do you wanna know what kind of car Shiloah has? A Ferrari Testarossa!”

  “Juana, all your dreams have come true!”

  “Everybody looked at us as we walked down the street. I felt like a queen. Shiloah treated me like a queen. I had to buy another suitcase for all the things he bought me.”

  “Juana, you were in seventh heaven.”

  “Yeah, girl. Shiloah is the kind of gentlemen that don’t exist anymore, except for you, darling stud.”

  “Thanks, Juana.”

  “What’s new around here?”

  After a silence, Matilde feigned excitement she didn’t feel and said, “I have news that’s going to leave you speechless. Yasmín and Sándor got together!”

  The news filled the Aston Martin with laughter, exclamations and commentaries.

  “Do you mind coming up to the office with me for a moment? I have to give some instructions to my secretaries and get some papers I left behind.”

  No one objected, so they went up to the eighth floor and tumbled into the office, laughing at a joke that Shiloah had told Juana. Al-Saud put his hands on Matilde’s shoulders and walked behind her.

  “Oh, what a happy little group!”

  All three of them stopped dead when they saw Céline. She was perching on Victoire’s desk, and had obviously been chatting with her. Matilde saw her wave away the smoke from a cigarette and stub out the butt with the little stabbing movements she made when she was angry.

  “Hello, Celia,” said Matilde. “You look very well.”

  She stood up and spoke to her in Spanish. “I’ve told you a million times not to call me that. My name is Céline. Hello, my love,” she said to Al-Saud, who was staring at her angrily.

  Céline moved in her proud way, parading her beauty as though it was a virtue that she had earned for herself and not a gift from nature. She approached Al-Saud, looking at his hands still resting on Matilde’s shoulders, smiled at him knowingly and tried to kiss him on the lips. Matilde’s short exclamation and Céline’s giggle mingled together.

  Al-Saud closed the door behind them and lightly pushed Matilde all the way into the room.

  “When did you get out of the clinic?” Al-Saud asked in French, but both Juana and Matilde could understand him now.

  “Just today. And the first thing I did was come to see you. Because I missed you terribly.” She looked at her younger sister with disdain. “I see that, in my absence, you found a little rag doll to entertain you.”

  “Céline, let’s go to my office. We have to talk.”

  “Really? About what?”

  Matilde and Juana were watching the exchange with the frozen faces of spectators absorbed in the plot of a movie. Matilde’s heart had sunk as soon as she saw her sister; as the seconds passed, the increasing pressure on her chest started to cut off the flow of air. Instinctively, she sensed that something very bad was about to happen. She clutched Juana’s hand, who squeezed hers back.

  “What do you have to say to me, Eliah?”

  “Please, let’s talk in my office.”

  “No, here. I don’t feel like going into your office.”

  Victoire and Thérèse abandoned their desks and shut themselves in the kitchen.

  “The night of the party at Trégart’s, I told you we had to talk, but circumstances led to my early departure…”

  “Yes, you left with this one.” Céline’s affected courtesy and sarcasm were starting to abandon her. Her mask of indolent fun was cracking, and fury was leaking through. “Fine, once again I won’t say anything, I’ll swallow the insult, just as I did when you decided to leave me after Sa
mara’s death and get involved with that Natasha.”

  Al-Saud grabbed Céline’s elbow and wrenched her out of the office, but the woman snatched her arm back. That simple contact drove Matilde mad with jealousy—little by little, she was starting to see the whole sordid picture behind the scene that was taking place in front of her eyes. She said to herself, I have to get out of here, but she found that it was impossible to move her legs.

  “I know you didn’t leave me because you stopped wanting me, did you? I still drove you crazy, as I always have, in the past and in the present. But you couldn’t shake the guilt, and I had to atone for that undeserved guilt.” She turned to look at Juana and Matilde. “Do you know who Eliah was with the afternoon his wife, Samara, was killed? Me. He was fucking me!”

  Al-Saud threw himself at her, seized her by the shoulders and shook her. Matilde let out a scream and tried to intervene; Juana stopped her.

  “Enough! Shut up, Céline! What did you come here for? I want you to leave and never come back!”

  “Let go of me! You’re hurting me!”

  “I’m sick of you!”

  “Ha! Sick of me! That’s not what you said when you were making love to me and promising that you would leave your wife because you couldn’t live without me.”

  Al-Saud didn’t dare to look at Matilde. The lament that escaped her was enough to know that his life’s happiness was teetering on the edge of an abyss.

  “I never told you that I would leave Samara! Worse than a whore, you’re a liar!”

  Céline slapped him across the face.

  “Enough!” Matilde burst out. “For the love of God, enough!”

  “Oh, poor little Matilde. We made her cry.”

  Al-Saud went to her, but she turned her back on him and hugged Juana.

  “How kind! The gentleman runs to console his damsel.” Céline, worked up, unhinged, sidled up to Al-Saud and stroked the reddened part of his jaw. “I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I forgive you, Eliah. One more time, I’ll forgive this infidelity.”

  “You’re talking to me about infidelity? When you sleep with any man you feel like?”

  Céline’s cackle shook Matilde to the core.

  “Juani,” she whispered, “get me out of here.”

  “No, Mat.”

  “It’s okay, darling. I admit it: we both had our slipups, but the love that unites us is so strong and our passion so violent that we always end up back in each other’s arms. It’s been like that for years, Eliah. You’re not going to change now.”

  “Everything has changed now, Céline. Meeting Matilde changed my life, changed me, changed everything.”

  “You disappoint me, champ! A man like you with a trifling thing like my little sister?”

  “That’s your opinion. I think she’s the most amazing woman in the world and I want her by my side forever. I want to marry her. I want her to be my wife.”

  A struggle briefly broke out behind Céline’s mocking mask, but she regained control immediately and forced out another empty cackle.

  “Why would you want to marry a woman who can’t give you children?”

  “No!”

  Matilde’s shriek upset Al-Saud. He rounded on her and saw the rawest, most visceral panic he ever remembered having seen on her face; she hadn’t even been so upset during the attack outside the institute. Looking at Matilde, his back still to Céline, he asked her, “What do you mean she can’t give me children?”

  “Oh? She hasn’t told you? Interesting.”

  “Celia, please,” Matilde begged.

  “Celia, you stupid little whore,” Juana intervened, “shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you.”

  “Why should I shut up?”

  “Please,” Matilde whispered, overwhelmed with panic.

  “What are you talking about, Céline?”

  “Just that my darling little sister isn’t a complete woman. She’s empty because they took out her reproductive organs. She doesn’t have ovaries or a uterus or Fallopian tubes or anything. They scooped her out when she was sixteen to treat a very aggressive cancer.”

  Al-Saud heard Matilde’s sobbing without registering it consciously, because he was thinking about Céline’s revelation. This was worse than being stabbed through the heart.

  “You’re lying.” It came out like an exhalation.

  “No, I’m not lying. Am I, Matilde?”

  Matilde saw Céline approaching her through a veil of tears, and she was afraid. Her body radiated a dangerous, savage strength. Al-Saud planted himself in her path and stopped her.

  “Don’t go anywhere near her. If you don’t want me to drag you out by your hair, you’d better leave right now.”

  Céline withdrew a few steps, collected her coat and purse and, as she went out past Matilde, stopped and spoke to her in Spanish.

  “You stole Papi’s love, Grandmother’s and Aunt Enriqueta’s, and now you came to Paris and stole the thing I loved most in the world. I hate you, Matilde! I hate you with all my heart! I wish you had died at sixteen! I wish the cancer had killed you! I wanted it so badly!”

  Juana’s bellow sounded like the cry of a Celtic warrior, thunderous, deep, heartrending. It even shook Céline, who turned back to see her flying at her. Juana fell on the body of the top-earning model in Europe and toppled her to the ground.

  “Stupid little whore!” she screamed, battering Céline’s head against the carpet. “Bitch! You should have died years ago! Stupid whore!”

  Thérèse and Victoire abandoned their refuge and ran to help Mr. Al-Saud, who was trying to separate them, a difficult job because the women were clutching each other and rolling around like rabid cats and there was nowhere to grab them. Nobody noticed when Matilde ran out of the room.

  Al-Saud grasped Juana by the ankles and dragged her across the rug until he had removed her from the epicenter of the fight, while Thérèse and Victoire grabbed Céline by the arms to stop her from hurling herself at her opponent again. Juana clambered to her feet on her own and threw Al-Saud a furious look.

  “Enough, Juana!” He grabbed her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Calm down.” Without turning back to his secretaries, he said to them, “Call security.”

  Céline, whom Victoire and Thérèse had put in a chair with her head back to stop the nosebleed, was crying and still letting out a stream of insults. The guards appeared within a few minutes.

  “Get that woman out of this hotel,” Al-Saud ordered. “She’s forbidden from ever setting foot in the George V again.”

  “Don’t touch me!” Céline exclaimed when the guards tried to lift her up. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on me! You’re going to pay for this, Eliah! I’m going to make you pay for this humiliation!”

  “Let’s go! What are you waiting for? Get her out of here! And don’t go through the lobby, take her out the back.”

  Céline’s screeches could be heard even after they got her into the elevator and the doors slid shut.

  “Where’s Matilde?” Al-Saud looked from side to side. “Where is she?” he asked, with an anguished tone, tearing open the doors to the other rooms.

  “She must have left, sir,” Thérèse concluded. “The door was open.”

  “My God! Call reception! Ask if she’s down there. Tell them not to let her leave. She doesn’t have a bodyguard!”

  Al-Saud left the office and chose to run down the eight flights of stairs. He didn’t have the patience to wait for the elevator. In the lobby they told him they had seen her looking very shaken on her way out to the street. The bellboy reported that Matilde had asked for a taxi and he had gotten her one immediately.

  “Did you hear what address she gave the driver?”

  “No, sir. I’m sorry.”

  “My God,” Al-Saud moaned, and put his head in his hands.

  Matilde rang the doorbell at Jean-Paul Trégart’s apartment and prayed that Ezequiel wasn’t away or on a photo shoot. A maid invited her to come in and asked her to
wait in the reception area. Ezequiel appeared right away, with a smile, and Matilde ran to him, jumped into his arms and burst into tears, making a noise that gave the boy goose bumps. They stood hugging in the hall until the tears turned into sighs.

  “Let’s go to the living room. Suzanne! Bring us something to drink. What do you want, Mat?”

  “Rien,” she sobbed, not realizing that she was speaking in French.

  “You have to drink something. Suzanne, bring us tea and orange juice.”

  They sat on a sofa and Ezequiel snuggled Matilde up to his chest. Being held by her friend evoked many images from the time when she had suffered from a serious illness and Juana and Ezequiel had accompanied her to the long chemotherapy sessions. Only Ezequiel had been able to get her to smile. And later, when the effects of the drugs were ravaging her, her friends cared for her and helped her; sometimes they would miss school to be with her, and Matilde had felt safe with them.

  “Now can you tell me what happened? Where’s baby girl? Wasn’t she getting back from Tel Aviv today? Did something happen to baby girl?” he asked worriedly, sitting up.

  “No, no. Juana’s fine. Don’t worry.”

  Matilde straightened up and looked Ezequiel in the eyes. He was looking at her with so much sweetness and affection that a lump grew in her throat, tears started flowing again and she wasn’t able to say a word. A moment later, she started talking, cuddled on his torso—it was easier when she wasn’t looking at him—and told him what happened in the offices at the George V.

  “Celia is such a miserable bitch! If I could get my hands on her, I would strangle her.”

  “Juana is taking care of that. When I left the George V, she was beating her to a pulp.”

  “That’s my baby girl!” Matilde smiled with a face that revealed her exhaustion. “Drink a little tea, Mat. It’ll help.”

  The infusion, mixed with milk and sugar, went down her esophagus like a balm. She drank it in silence, without looking up, aware that Ezequiel was looking at her.

  “Why didn’t you tell him that you had had cancer and that you can’t have children?”

  “Because I was ashamed,” she admitted. “I didn’t want him to know. I was so scared that my Aunt Sofía had told his mother, Madame Francesca. But it seems that she didn’t.”