He was already at her face when she blinked again, his frozen eyes being filled with the same usual superb rage.
“She… is a friend.” Clarice replied, hesitating, already with wet eyes. She knew what would follow.
“And you talk about me, Clarice? What about your own women issues? Scrapbooking, knitting? No? About me?”
His sarcasm was painful, mostly because she knew his sarcasm to be always followed by an extra dose of violence. Being free from the medicine was liberating and terrifying at the same time. Once left aside, the drugs would no longer offer her that state of numbness in which she lived before, which allowed her to absorb the punches in a neutral state, distant. All she needed was to place herself at some different place, a different time and it all would be fine.
“She lives nearby, she wanted…”
“What do you talk about, Clarice?” He yelled and she swore the fireplace danced when his voice echoed. “You know what the flaw you all women have?”
“No.” She replied because she knew she had to. If she didn’t, he’d force her.
“You talk too much. Women talk too much. They say things they shouldn’t, by the way. Have you been saying things you shouldn’t, Clarice?”
“No, I--”
The cold and heavy hand of his, which still held the phone, came against her face in a sudden blow. She barely had time to had her eyes closed, the extra-weight from the device did nothing to help it. Taken by surprise and the impact, Clarice fell, the body dropping against the nearby armchair. She didn’t cry, though. She just tried to pull herself together, even if all she wanted was to dive into that armchair for a few hours. She had no time to consider that idea; Clarice felt her head being suddenly pulled when Nathan grasped her by the hair and dragged her across the room, throwing him open against the floor, facing the fire.
“Why do you do it, Clarice?”
She stood quiet, in silence and still, just watching him.
“All I ask you is to shut up. All I ask you is…”
Clarice stood on her elbows, trying to come up, but his hand came again against her face, another hit and another fall, this time her head hitting the floor.
She closed her eyes. If she weren’t there, she wouldn’t feel it. She wouldn’t cry, she wouldn’t give him that pleasure. No. Michelle wouldn’t let her and Michelle was there, Michelle had always been with her.
“I told you not to move. You need to listen to me. You need to learn to listen to me, Clarice. Have you noticed that everything is fine until you fuck it all up? Until you bother me, concern me, concerns I shouldn’t even have? Have you noticed that?”
Nathan paced around, while Clarice stood on the floor, quiet, waiting further instructions.
“Stand up and talk to me like a decent human being, Clarice. Tell me: what’s the reason for those fallacies?”
She didn’t want to stand up or ‘act decent’. She wanted to die. Or kill. Clarice ignored her thoughts and put herself up, keeping still, eyes partially opened. Partially closed.
“There’s nothing to worry about, sweetheart.”
Nathan spun sharply and grabbed her by the neck with his both hands, putting Clarice against the wall. She didn’t want to react, but she needed to breath. She needed to stop him from breaking her with his hands, stop him from blocking her trachea forever, emergency could take a while. Oh, Michelle… she wouldn’t allow herself the same ending of her friend’s, she had promised she wouldn’t do it, that she would end it up and not the opposite.
“No sarcasms, I’ve told you already.”
Clarice grabbed Nathan’s hands, trying to remove them from her neck, but she was already weak. And then he let her go, huffing and puffing at her face, his nauseating breath stinking to tobacco and alcohol hitting her hardly. She wanted to throw up.
“Go change yourself.” He ordered, walking back to the armchair. “We’ll have dinner soon, Alex should be back soon. And remember.”
Clarice started on walking away, but she halted as he yelled the last word.
“Remember?”
“Who you were before, Clarice. Always remember. You were nothing, just this girl by the trash. You wanted to be saved, that’s the price.”
“I didn’t ask to be saved.” She mumbled when she gave him her backs and returning to her path.
She barely took two steps and she fell her head whiplash when he grabbed her from behind, by the air, with a bigger strength than the usual. That, too, was the first time she ever talked back at him so directly. The first in fifteen years.
“So you’ll deny it? Are you going to say you didn’t beg? It all comes to a price, Clarice. And you deserve this price.”
Nathan pushed her hard, tossing Clarice against the opposite wall. This time, though, she acted faster and avoided the impact by using her hands and turning around. The movement was so sudden and abrupt she only noticed she had slapped him when Nathan turned his face to her, to the original position and she saw his plastic face become red. A shiver consumed her body and Clarice couldn’t move. She closed her eyes and pretended to be at one of those moments in which she sank into drugs, in which she didn’t feel, she didn’t live, she didn’t witness. She only received.
And she received the punch, she ignored the nausea. She received the other punch and ignored the buzz in her head when it met the floor. She only opened her eyes when she realized she no longer felt it, she no longer felt anything at all. Her nose bled, her stomach burned, her neck still hurt where he had pressed his hands against. She felt the hair pulling and the kicking as if they were distant, as if they were simply a memory. She stood still when he dragged her and tried to raise her body, when he repeated the blows a few more times, when he abandoned her and returned only to discharge the rest of his anger, the rest of his humiliation for feeling less of a macho after being beaten by a woman, though it had only been a slap.
Clarice was left at the floor just like an old and worn out ragdoll, barely breathing, barely living. Her eyes stared at the chandelier above her, feet apart, while she pretended not to feel anything until she indeed didn’t feel any of that no more. She didn’t feel because she knew that was the end.
Clarice wanted to cry for help. She wanted to get up, drag herself out of there. She saw herself crawling through the staircase and leaving a path of blood behind, but she couldn’t move. She could hear the crackling of the wood in the fire, she could hear her husband on the phone and distant noises. Maybe Alexander was back home. Maybe it was one of the maids.
And she thought of Michelle. Michelle in her car, motionless, unable to move.
She wouldn’t let that happen to herself. It was as if she had been living a twisted version of what had happened to her friend, years ago. A blurry mirror, dazing, revealing to her the side of life she didn’t want to discover. Michelle didn’t stand a chance and died.
She wouldn’t die.
Not there.
As if finally waking up from a long sleep, Clarice inhaled and the air that entered her lungs gave her life again. She choked and coughed, slowly getting up, afraid another blow would come, perhaps even death, finally.
She put herself up and on her feet. She couldn’t say how long it took her, but she managed to drag herself out of the room by short steps and she also managed to climb up the steps up to the top, reaching her room.
A few minutes in bed allowed Clarice to recollect herself. She may have spent a few hours in there, she couldn’t tell that either. When she woke up again, she could feel the heat in her face again. She was alone at the room, Nathan should be still downstairs, sharing one of his stupid cigars with his first marriage son. Alexander. She wanted to throw up at the remembrance of his name alone, an eighteen-year-old who behaved as a reckless and irresponsible fourteen-year-old thanks to the father’s treats. He was a man, his firstborn and, probably, the only one and the last one.
Clarice would make sure of that.
Nathan was at the large sofa this time, when she walked down
to the living room. She hadn’t changed, she hadn’t cleaned herself. The same blood filament which ran from her nose to her neck was there, just as the blood in her forehead and the rest of her body. The bruises, this time, wouldn’t be hidden by layers of makeup, by the overlaying techniques she had learned as the years passed. She wouldn’t put the hat on, neither would she tell Alexander or the servants she had fallen from the stairs, though she knew the household workers would already be miles away from there by then.
When she reached the living room, the old grandfather clock called midnight.
Clang…
The first bang tolled.
Nathan was at the sofa, his backs turned to her, smoking his cigar while Alexander, with his golden hair and metallic smile, read something on his phone.
…Clang…
Alexander was the first to notice her, he was reading something to his father, some stupid homophobic joke, when he noticed Clarice’s figure and her condition.
…Clang…
And he chuckled. He couldn’t hold the laughter in by seeing a pale woman painted in red and purple, her hair distressed, risen, stuck in blood and wounds. He thought it was funny and joyful, he probably had fun with the humiliation, the father’s power exposure. He laughed…
Clang,
And he didn’t notice what had happened at the same time of that tolling until the blood and brains of his father exploded on his face.
Clang,
Alexander didn’t move, he still had his mouth open in an interrupted smile, eyes frozen onto Clarice. She didn’t smile, she didn’t move. She just waited.
Clang,
She lifted the gun to Alexander, ready to shoot along the clang. The boy, though, put on some life and jumped, in an attempt to running and escape. Clarice watched when he stumbled on the coffee table and couldn’t stand for a few seconds.
Clang,
Clarice raised the gun and pointed it at him, who didn’t have much space to run anymore, mostly now, when he was so clumsily nervous. She pointed the gun just like the husband hand once taught her, trying to teach her how to defend herself, not so long after hey first met.
Clang,
Alexander knew his only way out was to walk by her. The closest door, at least. He lifted his hands and she saw when his eyes glimpsed the door to the winter garden. Once there, he would soon access the front yard and escape, even if he had to jump into a frozen lake to do such.
Clang,
Alexander turned and ran. He barely had time to venture himself in two long steps when Clarice, now holding the gun with both her hands, shot. Inertia made him dive into the air when his legs suddenly stopped moving and the boy fell onto one of the glass shelves at the room, where Nathan used to keep his precious vases – vases that shattered into a million pieces with the impact and fell all over the boy, as did the rack and its glass-made shelves.
Clang,
Clarice lowered her Walther and sighed. She took it deep and looked up, facing the chandelier again, perhaps looking beyond it, to a dark sky she didn’t see from there, but she could pretend.
Clang,
It was over. At least that part of it.
Clang.
The clock showed almost three in the morning when she allowed herself a brief comfortable moment at the sofa. The fireplace still burned, calm, and the village on the other side of the lake remained quiet, no signs of alarm caused by gunshots. Maybe they hadn’t even heard it.
The room was destroyed, as a good part of that house. Clarice certified herself to give it her best shot, she had to fake it as best as she could. The vase rack, that had been brought down by Alexander’s body, was now a simple detail amidst such wreckage. The husband and the stepson’s bloods, mixed to hers, decorated the rug and the mansion’s upholstery. Even her own room, upstairs, had been turned over, Clarice being careful enough to put all family jewels and the money she had in the house in a plastic zip bag.
The same zip bag was put inside another, and inside another one. She still had access to much bigger amounts of money from offshore accounts, but she would need a kickstart until she had the online access, mainly knowing she would have to ignore that for a few months ahead not to call any undesired attention. Few people knew about her husband’s embezzlement and his tax havens, but it was impossible to predict what could be uncovered during a murder investigation, even more when she was faking it all to look like kidnapping.
Clarice cut her own hand with a letter opener and used the blood that came from it to leave handprints all over the floor, walls and upholstery, as if she had tried to run, as if she had been dragged. The same way, she pulled a few strands of hair, leaving them behind and even at some specific edges and corners, to increase the effect. The shoes were thrown into different sides of the place, one on the top of the stairs, the other by the winter garden. She had spent way too much time locked home with her thriller movies to not know how to fake a crime scene. Perhaps there would be a few holes in the narrative, maybe some things would be out of place and raise suspicion, but who would ever doubt a victim?
The police, she thought in a bitter smirk. The could – and surely would – think she had ended the family for good, destroying it all and leaving with a lover.
Sitting at the staircase, Clarice removed Nathan’s wedding ring from the pocket in her pants and rolled it between her fingers. She didn’t want to discard it, that would be useful. Although she wished she could destroy that along with hers, she felt torn as she remembered the proposal, the engagement, the first date. Her mind was creating an unstable retrospective, sometimes going back to the start of the relationship and, sometimes, bringing her back a few hours before.
The phone rang and the text message shone on the screen.
Confirmed. South road, morning. Good luck.
Clarice typed fast another text message and sent it, turning the device off right after. She couldn’t use it, she wouldn’t be able to communicate for a while, she would need the silence and the realism of it. She would sew the phone inside a coat she had, the same coat she would keep in the backpack, with her all along, in the case of emergency.
Clarice put the ring away again and climbed up the stairs, taking a camping backpack from the closet, along some pieces of clothing and a small wooden box. That backpack had been a gift from the husband, it even had her name written in a metallic tag, custom.
She opened the wooden box and confirmed its contents: a golden necklace that had belonged to Michelle, a bag full of herbs and dried fruits, some pictures, an old perfume bottle and, at last, Nathan’s wedding ring. She locked the box with a small key and tossed it inside the bag. From the closet, she also took two black-covered notebooks: Michelle’s diaries, given to her by the woman herself after they started their friendship. It was a way of talking just like in letters, but without neither of the husbands suspecting anything.
Clarice grabbed two sweaters and lay them open on the bed, placing the Walther and a loaded clip right in the middle of it, folding both pieces many times until she hid the gun inside, with her phone – she gave up on the idea of sewing, she feared not having enough time. She put that huge mass made of folded sweaters in the bottom of the backpack, the small box atop, the notebooks and some useless belongings, like a toothbrush and some pictures of hers with her husband and stepson. It would be enough.
She zipped it shut, taking a last look around to see what else she would need. Nothing, except waiting and taking that plan further ahead.
Clarice felt a sudden cold shiver in her chest, that nervous anxiety that comes when you realize what is really about to happen. She had to flee, now, she had to run.
She went to the closet a last time and grabbed two important things: a big heavy fur coat and her husband’s gun. The coat would be useful for two reasons: give away the picture she wanted them to see and protect her from the cold, since she had no idea of how long she would spend on the woods until they found her. The gun, on the other hand, had another use: causing a f
uss.
Clarice though about Michelle again and sighed. If still alive, maybe she would feel proud of her. But again, if Michelle were alive, she wouldn’t have gotten to such extremes, they could be calmly living somewhere far, enjoying a peaceful and free from worries life besides the concern of when to do the next grocery shop. Far from that place, from that hell, from such darkness.
Clarice headed down to the garage. The car, however dirty with mud and snow, was also dirty inside, after she had it loaded with bodies. She looked away from the open garage and she saw the artificial lake, right after that long wooden pier. The connection between the garage and the pier was a straight stone-paved slope and Clarice wondered if that idea was good enough and she realized that it was indeed. If it went wrong, it would at least cause the fuss she intended.
With the bag in her back, she opened the driver’s door and turned engines on, taking the car to the gate just enough for the front wheels to touch the beginning of that descend. Inside the car, she jumped to the backseat, recalling the house’s only surveillance camera was exactly the one above the garage gate. After emerging from the backside door, she used all her strengths to push the car and wait until it obeyed to the laws of physics and slid slowly and smoothly down the slope to reach the frozen surface of the lake, a few yards away, after wrecking the pier. From that land she wanted nothing, anyway.
As the car started rolling down towards the lake, slow and patiently, Clarice started to run. Now she’d have only a mere matter of seconds until everyone’s attention was turned to that mansion. Back to the living room, she cocked the husband’s gun with her gloved hands and shot once, twice, three times. The first shot against that damn clock. The second, against the husband’s beloved leather couches. The third, against the fireplace, were those fake family pictures stood, giving the impression it was all perfect between them.
The Woman Hidden Page 37
