by Evie Blake
Santos pulls back her blanket and looks at her. He puts his hand to her bruised eye, and she flinches when he touches her.
‘Who did this to you?’ he asks, his voice hoarse with anger.
She is unable to lie to him.
‘Who do you think?’ The words stumble out of her slowly, stuck inside her stiff mouth.
He comprehends, and his face clouds with anger.
‘Show me,’ he commands.
‘No,’ she says, weakly, ‘I don’t want to.’
‘Show me what he did to you because of me.’
His voice is harsh. It almost frightens her. She rises slowly from her chair, unfastens her dress and lets it fall to the ground. She is so sore, she can hardly lift her arms to take off her chemise.
‘I can’t . . .’ she whimpers.
He leans over her, and lifts the chemise up over her head.
She stands before him, a blackbird with broken wings. She looks into his face and sees anguish in his eyes. He falls on his knees in front of her and buries his head in her stomach.
‘Forgive me,’ he mumbles into her soft belly.
‘It’s not your fault,’ she whispers, pushing her fingers through his hair, gripping his soft curls.
He pulls away and looks up at her. His eyes are blazing.
‘I will kill him,’ he hisses.
Fear shoots through her. She has no doubt that Santos would be true to his word, but she cannot let him go near Signor Brzezinski. She cannot risk her lover being hurt, or arrested for murder . . . executed. The thought makes her sick. Signor Brzezinski has tainted everything in her life so far. She cannot let him destroy Santos.
‘No,’ she begs, stroking Santos’s hair. ‘No, my love, please don’t . . .’
‘I cannot promise you that,’ Santos says sternly, standing up and circling her within his arms. ‘He is a monster to beat a woman. How can you expect me not to want to right this wrong?’
‘No, no.’ Louise can feel the edge of hysteria mounting within her. She cannot put Santos in danger . . . and what about her mother? If Santos didn’t kill Signor Brzezinski but maimed him, she knows exactly how her husband would make her pay. He would ensure that her mother never gets to leave Poveglia. He would allow that cruel doctor to do a lobotomy on her. He has threatened as much before. For Signor Brzezinski is the one who committed her mother. He has all the power.
The fear builds inside her, and now, held in her lover’s arms, the shock from her beating begins to hit her. Last night she thought Signor Brzezinski might kill her. She thought she was never going to see Santos again. She begins to shake uncontrollably, tears falling down her cheeks, running into her mouth.
‘Please, Santos.’ She is sobbing. ‘Please don’t go near him.’
‘Ludwika,’ he says gently in Polish. ‘I won’t ever let him touch you again.’
Always Santos has called her Belle. To hear him speak the name her parents christened her, to hear the Polish words roll out of his mouth makes her feel as if she is being carried on a wave, away from reality and into the land of her heart. She is shedding the skin of her other self, showing him who she really is. She collapses into Santos’s arms, and cries from deep down inside her belly, bringing up the grief of all these years. Her father dying. Her mother going insane. Her loveless wedding that felt like a funeral. The loneliness of her marriage. Her husband becoming a monster. Santos holds her in his arms, stroking her hair, letting her saturate his shirt with tears.
‘Ludwika, my beautiful Ludwika . . .’ Again and again he chants it. Gradually her tears subside. Santos bends down and scoops her up in his arms. He carries her to the bed and lays her down. He smoothes her black bob with his hands, and she feels comforted by his touch. He lies on the bed next to her, takes his damp shirt off so that he is only in his trousers. He strokes her naked battered body, and she has never seen him so serious, so subdued. He begins to kiss her. Every mark her husband made upon her body, Santos kisses. He kisses her bruised eye and her sore chin. He kisses bruises blooming on her chest and breasts, the burn on her wrist where Signor Brzezinski twisted it. He rolls her over and kisses all the way down her spine, to the point where her husband punched her. He rolls her back over and kisses her swollen legs. He crawls back up her body and kisses her belly, where the pain throbs deepest. Although he doesn’t say a word, Louise can feel his love upon her skin. It is the most healing balm of all. With each kiss her physical pain recedes, and her heart expands.
‘Make love to me,’ she whispers, looking into his jewel eyes.
He frowns.
‘Are you sure, my little blackbird. I don’t want to hurt you.’
She shakes her heavy head at him.
‘You could never hurt me, Santos,’ she says.
He hovers over her, studying her face with concern.
‘This has happened to you because of me. I am not worth it,’ he says, stroking her cheek gently. ‘I cannot stay here with you for ever, Ludwika. I cannot give a woman like you what she needs.’
She takes his hand in hers, and lays it on her breast. Her nipples harden beneath his touch.
‘Yes you can,’ she says hoarsely.
It is the trust he sees in her eyes that finally turns the key to his heart. He sees that she would die for him, and he feels in awe. He wants to worship this woman who risks all for him.
He bends down and kisses her softly on the lips. Louise loosens her hold on his hands and closes her sore eyes. She feels him trailing his hands lightly down her body, and cupping her sex within his palm.
‘Oh please, Santos, make me better,’ she whispers. ‘Make love to me.’
He kisses her again in reply, and tenderly pushes her legs apart, bringing his fingers back inside her and caressing her deep within. She is melting, all pain transformed into passion. Her raw emotion courses through her body, so that each time he tips her with his finger, the sensation becomes more and more intense.
She cries out his name. Santos. And in reply he enters her gently, pushing his way deep inside her. She opens her eyes, trembling with desire and emotion, and looks into the face of her lover. He is gazing at her in a way he has never looked at her before. It is as if her vulnerability has made Santos vulnerable, for his eyes are laced with tears as he climbs deeper and deeper inside her. There is no need for any more words. They are in complete harmony. He feels her pain, and she feels his passion. Together they climax in perfect unity, the love between them overflowing like a flood of emotion submerging them.
Valentina
SHE TURNS ON THE LIGHT BOX IN HER STUDIO IN THE apartment. White light blasts upwards, splashing on to the walls and ceilings of the room, leaving the corners untouched, the doorway to her own little darkroom bathed in shadows. She wants to know what this negative is of, yet she doesn’t feel like setting up her darkroom and enlarging it yet. She is going to cheat and take a look using her light box and special zoom-type loupe.
She takes the negative out of the plastic cover and slides it on to her enormous light box, which is in fact a converted counter top. She picks up her loupe and bends down, resting it against the image and pressing her eye into the piece.
What she sees makes her hold her breath for a second. This isn’t mildly erotic like the other photographs; this is full-on erotica. It must be rare, she thinks, to have a picture like this from the twenties. It must be worth a fortune. Is that why Theo gave them to her?
She stares at the negative and its contours seep into her subconscious. It looks so much like an image from one of her dreams.
This picture is different from all the others. It is the same model, she imagines, but instead of a close-up, she gets to see her whole body. It looks to have been taken outside, as the woman is lying on her front on brilliant white stone or marble, obviously in the full blaze of sunlight. It appears almost as white as her own light box. This dazzling background sets off the tonal contrasts on the woman’s naked body. Her legs are apart, and bent upwards at the knee. She is w
earing a pair of black button boots. Her torso is twisted around, as is her head, and she is wearing a white Venetian mask which completely obscures her facial features, apart from her mouth, which is parted slightly as if in anticipation. She has a dark helmet bob, the signature hairstyle of the twenties. All of these elements of the model – her parted legs, her twisted back and head – are moving towards one central focus in the picture. Her right arm is reaching back towards her bottom, creating an angular line as her elbow bends. She has pushed her hand between her bottom cheeks, parting them slightly, her fingers spread. Her middle finger is pushed right down and is pulling up the most private part of herself. She is offering herself to the viewer.
Look at me, how open I am for you, waiting to feel you inside.
The blinding white light beneath her body has leached to the area between her legs, so that is edged in white. It reminds Valentina of a halo, and gives the image an almost spiritual quality, incongruously. It is also intensely erotic. Valentina bites her lip. She just loves this image. It is beautiful, stylish and sexy. It is everything she wants to bring into her own erotic photography. She imagines enlarging it until it is really big, framing it and putting it on their bedroom wall. What would Theo think of that?
She is jolted out of her reverie by a loud crash. She opens the door of her studio and listens. She can hear noises coming from the kitchen. She runs down the hall, and flings open the door to see a blackbird frantically flapping around. How did it get in here? The window is closed. She stands rooted to the spot for a moment, watching the blackbird seeking a way out. It swoops towards the sink, its wings slapping against the draining board, and takes off again, skimming over her head. She can feel the panic of this little bird. She can’t bear to see it trapped, and frightened.
She runs over to the window and opens it, hoping the bird will fly out of its own accord. Yet it seems possessed, unable to find its way. It continues to fly around the room, knocking into the saucepans hanging down from the rack and the jars of spices on the windowsill.
Come on, little blackbird, out you go!
Finally the bird lands on top of the fridge, blinking at Valentina with its tiny jet-black eyes. She waits by the window, waves to the bird. She is not sure if it senses her, but suddenly it launches itself across the room and just like that is out of the window. In the end so easily; no need for its fear.
Valentina closes the window quickly. She sits down at the kitchen table and chews her bottom lip, thinking about the bird. Is that good or bad luck to have a blackbird in your kitchen?
She spreads her hands on the surface of the wooden table and takes a deep breath. Last night. She finds it hard to believe it really happened. But it did. She puts her hands on her backside. It feels a little sore, but not painful. She gets up and goes into the bedroom, stands with her back to her mirror, twisting around to look at her bottom. Remarkably, it is blemish-free. Not one little burn or redness from her experience with Leonardo.
She feels different today. All of these erotic investigations are having a profound effect on her. She is realising that sex can never just be casual, even if it is free spirited. She thought that she could remain an observer, like a true photographer, but there is something within her that cannot resist participating. She thinks of Theo’s emails: Have fun, as if he is encouraging her. He was there in Leonardo’s club the other night, with her and Leonardo and Celia. He is part of it all. She thought that by doing what she did with Leonardo last night she could break free from Theo and let him go, but instead it makes her want him more. She can’t understand the logic of her need. But it is there, primal and urgent, heating her blood. And why oh why has he disappeared again? He was there one moment, gone the next. He didn’t even talk to her. Is he trying to prove a point? It is all very convoluted and confusing . . . just like Theo himself, she supposes.
A possibility occurs to her for the first time. Maybe she could try to be his girlfriend, like he asked. Maybe she can take the risk and trust him.
If only he would come back. She has had enough of waiting for him. Okay, she thinks as she picks up her phone and scrolls down to his number, you win, Theo. Yet the phone rings out; it doesn’t even go to voicemail. She flings it down on the bed in frustration.
Her doorbell buzzes. She goes into the hall and picks up her intercom.
‘Package for Signorina Rosselli.’
It is from Mattia. Her mother’s pictures that he said he would send her. Although the package looks a little large to be just photographs. She tears open the wrapping to find two bundles. One is an old cardboard folder decorated with the winged lion of Venice. She opens it up, and a sheaf of photographs flutter to the floor. Some of them are recent. Of Valentina when she was growing up. A serious, heavy-browed, plump little girl, with her signature black bob even then. She cannot bear to look at the ones when she was a teenager, she was so pitifully thin. How could her mother have let that happen to her? And then there is a stack of really old photographs. Not of her mother, but of her grandmother, Maria, when she was a little girl. Maria was a smiling child, and obviously adored by her own mother. Picture after picture of Valentina’s grandmother and great-grandmother hand in hand in front of the grand old palazzos of Venice, or her grandmother on her own mother’s lap in a gondola, the misty black and white landscape of the Adriatic lagoon bleaching into a nothing sky. There are no photographs of her grandmother’s father, or any siblings, and Valentina has a distant memory of being told that her grandmother’s father died when she was a baby, and that she was an only child.
There are two pictures that intrigue Valentina in particular. One is of her great-grandmother dressed in a sailor’s outfit, looking thoroughly modern in her flared white trousers, an admiral’s jacket and sailor’s cap. She isn’t smiling; in fact her expression is ferocious. Most remarkable of all is her hairstyle. A sleek black helmet bob, just like Louise Brooks; in fact very similar to the model in the erotic negative Valentina was just looking at. Very close in style to her own hair, although her bob is slightly longer, and more feathery. Finally, to her surprise, Valentina finds a picture of herself as a baby, on the lap of her great-grandmother. She can recognize it as the same woman, because although she is obviously very old, she has the same powerful gaze as in the other pictures of her, and of course there is the bobbed hair, now as white as snow. Valentina trails her finger over the image. She wishes she had known her great-grandmother when she was young and living in Venice. She has a feeling about her, as if they might have understood each other better than herself and her mother.
Valentina turns to the second bundle Mattia has sent. It is much larger, and to her delight it is full of vintage clothes. She pulls out item after item. Some of them look very rare. Are these from her mother as well? She guesses by the style of them that they could have been her great-grandmother’s clothes. She feels a thrill of excitement. They are all absolutely exquisite. She hunts around for a card or note of explanation from her brother, but she can find nothing. She thinks of her friend Marco, and his obsession with all things vintage. He will go crazy when he sees this hoard. There is a very short maid’s uniform, a divine Egyptian costume, a tailored pinstripe suit that is too small to be for a man, a trilby, a cloche hat, a short black ballerina dress with a stiff tutu, all sorts of ancient corsets, suspender belts and feathers. She pulls out a pair of black silk shorts and a sleeveless white silk blouse, a little discoloured but wearable, and a black silk scarf tied in a floppy bow. There is a long string of pearls that Valentina can’t believe her mother would give her. Surely they are worth something? But the real thrill is when she finds the sailor’s outfit from the photograph she just looked at, along with the hat. Here is the evidence that these are her great-grandmother’s party costumes when she lived in Venice.
Valentina tries on some of the costumes. Everything fits her perfectly, as if they were tailored for her. She could actually wear some of these clothes out. She remembers that today is Tuesday, and Marco’s party is
later. She should wear one of the outfits. The more flamboyant the better. That will please her friend.
So she won’t be going into the Dark Room tonight at least. Her heart skips a beat. Is she disappointed, or relieved? She really isn’t sure. She opens the French windows and steps out on to her tiny balcony, her dressing gown slung loosely over one of the old corsets. Now that the rain has gone, it is warm for October. Maybe she could show a little flesh later. She surveys the street. She notices one of those tiny Smart cars parked opposite her apartment, with a tall man sitting inside it, his head almost crushed against its roof. Really not the car for a man with such a build, she thinks. She wonders who he is waiting for. Which of her neighbours is dating a Smart car man? It is hardly romantic to have to sit behind your boyfriend while he drives, as if you are in the cockpit of a plane. But then it could be slightly sexy, she muses, if you could reach around the front seat and caress him as he drove. He could feel you, but he wouldn’t see you.
Just as she is thinking this, the man turns and looks up at her. To her surprise, he picks a camera up off his lap and directs it at her. Did he just take a picture of her?
She steps back inside the room and closes the French windows. She is furious. How dare some stranger take pictures of her? She realises now that he must be the same man she saw in the garden last week. She pulls on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, not caring about a bra or panties she is in such a hurry. She doesn’t even have the patience to wait for the lift, and runs down the three flights of stairs to street level in her bare feet. She storms out of her apartment building, but despite the fact that she is so quick, the Smart car and its occupant is gone. She thinks about ringing the police, but what could she tell them? She thinks a strange man in a Smart car took a picture of her? It sounds stupid, and really she doesn’t want to focus any attention on herself after Inspector Garelli’s interrogation about Theo and the pictures.
Back in her apartment, she dresses for Marco’s party. She is going to cycle to his flat, and it’s warm enough to wear the black silk shorts, with the little white blouse tucked into them and the bow tied loosely around the collar. When she looks in the mirror, it occurs to her that she looks very like Louise Brooks in her famous sailor outfit. She opens up her laptop and searches for an image of Louise. Sure enough, there she is, looking just like Valentina looks tonight. Louise Brooks was a rebel, and her free spirit cost her dear – a Hollywood career. Yet Valentina admires her greatly. She was an advocate for sexual liberation for women in the twenties and thirties. Yet still, nearly ninety years later, women are dealing with much the same prejudices. Valentina wonders if that is why her mother sometimes appears so hard. She was supposed to be living the ideal relationship in the sixties with Valentina’s father, the perfect balance of freedom and possession. Yet something went wrong. Did her father begin to judge her mother? Was he not the liberated man he claimed to be? She has no idea. It is the one subject her mother refuses to discuss. This infuriates Valentina. The man may have walked out on her mother, but he is still her father. He walked out on her and Mattia too. Shouldn’t they know whether he is dead or alive, at least? But Mattia claims he doesn’t care, and something always stops Valentina from looking for him herself. Fear, she supposes. Of getting hurt.
