Gate Deadlock (11 page)

I was shocked by what he had said. Normally, the
League would have him exterminated without warning. But because of
who he was, an eminent professor, they had decided to make him a
Confidant and spare his life.

For the first time after so many years in this
job, I’d met someone who had denied life and chosen death instead.
I tried to make him change his mind, I almost begged him, which was
very unusual for me. I told him how valuable he could be to the
League if he obeyed. But it was vain. He considered obeying to them
as a betrayal of his principles. He asked of me the same favor. I
told him I couldn’t promise anything but I would do my best and
left him sitting at the bench. I’ll never forget the expression on
his face. It has marked my life forever, more than the tattoo on my
arm.’

His voice was now calm, wistful. He looked at me
and saw I was crying silently. What he had just said hurt so much.
My chest felt too heavy as if the large wound was bleeding, burning
me. A wound carved by him.

‘Am I a confidant?’ I asked, my voice could
barely be heard.

‘You are now.’

‘And Don?’ But I already knew the answer to
that.

‘Yes.’ he just said.

‘But then Don knew… That night…’ I said,
suddenly feeling sick at the thought that had occurred to me.

‘He was only ordered to make sure your dad would
be at home. He probably thought we were only going to pay him a
visit. I’m sure he carries a heavy burden too.’

‘And… my mother?’

‘I don’t think she knows
anything.
Although Don must have used her to talk your
dad out of it, I guess.’

I stared at the dark sea, feeling suffocated by
the lump in my throat that would not go down. ‘I need to be alone.’
I said and got off the car to sit by the sea again. I took off my
shoes and put my feet in the water, subconsciously trying to
distract myself from the pain. The cool water was tickling my feet,
as I was getting more and more overwhelmed by disjoint thoughts. It
was very hard to believe his story that resembled a plot of the
films I enjoyed so often. But this one was true. I knew he was
telling the truth. Either that, or he was mental. I wasn’t sure
which option was worse.

Christopher was watching me from his car. After
a while, he came to sit next to me.

‘Tell me about that night.’ I asked him.

‘I guess you have a right to know.’ Grief was
obvious in his voice but I could not see his eyes, as he was
looking to the distant boat lights again. He sighed and once again
I knew he too was suffering. I wasn’t enjoying his suffering any
more. I wanted to touch him, hug him and kiss him but I was not
sure how far he had taken his display on me.

‘That night, three men came to your house. We
knew he was going to be alone, it had been arranged this way. Only…
you were there with him.’

‘I was sick.’ I muttered as I recalled that
night with such accuracy it could have been yesterday.

‘We came in through the back door.’

I hadn’t missed that he had said
we
. My last hope had
vanished.

‘Your father was in the
living room, lying on the sofa, with you sleeping in his arms. Theo
and Tex looked at me without speaking. I was in command you see. My
mind
was working fast. I knew we were supposed to kill
you too just for being there, for interfering with our plans. We
could not have any witnesses. Those are the Squad rules. This is
inevitable collateral damage for the League.

I raised my hand to stop them and leaned
over you. I took you from you father’s arms. I could see you were
feverish, your cheeks were bright red and you groaned as I removed
you. He woke up, but Theo and Tex were very quick, they gagged and
tied him up. I walked up the stairs with you in my arms but you
opened your eyes a little before the landing, looked at me and
asked:
Daddy?
I hushed
you.
Go back to sleep
Emma
.
I said. You smiled at me with that
lovely smile of yours and I smiled back. I put you into bed and you
were fast asleep again. I’ll never forget your smile. I ran down.
They were waiting for me. Tex was angry.
Did she wake up? Did she see you? You know what you have to do
if…
I stopped him.
She didn’t
wake up. The child is pretty sick, almost unconscious.
He didn’t bite it. Tex wasn’t very happy, I’m sure he wanted
you dead, just in case. My eyes met your dad’s. I could see he was
relieved. He nodded slightly and I thought he was thanking me. We
all got into the car and drove to the river. I was in the front
seat. When the car stopped by the river, I didn’t need to say
anything. Then Tex…’

He stopped, but I knew the rest of the
story. A bullet at the back of my dad’s head and his body left on
the riverbank. The whole
scene unfurled in my mind as
if I’d seen it with my eyes. So much pain!

‘There you are Emma. Now you
know what monster I am. What I’m capable of.
I know you had thought of me as the perfect man so
far.
I understand how you feel.
There are a million reasons
you should leave me. But, I…just wish you found only one a reason
to stay with me.’

Silence prevailed once again. I knew the past
was keeping us apart and I needed a little time before I could look
into his eyes again. I was suffering silently, unable to cry
anymore.

‘Have you ever regretted?’ I muttered
eventually.

‘About your father? I regret every single
moment, believe me.’

‘I mean about me, about saving me.’

He turned towards me abruptly. His eyes were
burning me.

‘About you?’

He took my hand in his and squeezed it. ‘This
choice is what helped me going. The knowledge that I did something
good in this evil situation. The suspicion that I might still have
some goodness inside me, this has saved me from myself. You are the
light in my life Emma. I know it’s selfish of me but … you’re my
absolution Emma.’ He kissed my hand and held it on his heart.

‘I know I’m exactly the opposite of what you
thought of me. If you don’t want to see me again after this night,
I will accept it and I will disappear.’

Not see him again? That was an option I could
not consider at that moment. Everything was so complicated and I
could not take it in. I was lost in a torrent of thoughts and
contradictory feelings, trying to find my way back to sanity.

‘I’ve already lost enough people in my life.’ I
whispered. I already knew my love for him was blind. A tear ran
down my cheek and he brushed it with his finger.

‘Emma, please let me stay with you for as
long as you need me.
I’m not asking you
to forgive me; this would be too high an aspiration. I am only
hoping for you to give me the chance to redeem myself, to let me
keep my promise to your father. I know this must sound selfish, but
I need you too.’ He sighed at my silence.

‘I wasn’t lying last night, Emma. That was me,
the real me you slept with. That was not part of the plan. It just
was …inevitable. I have tried to deny my feelings for you, but …I
can’t do this anymore.’

We were both silent for some time. After a
while, he gave up and said, ‘It’s getting really late. Shall I take
you home?’

‘Yes.’ I said. On the way home none of us
spoke.

‘What about my car?’ I asked when he stopped the
car outside my apartment.

‘I’ll ask Suzan to bring it to your house.’

‘Please, don’t hurt Don for telling me. He just
did …he only meant well.’ I pleaded him, tears running on my cheeks
once more.

He bit his lip and looked at me
disappointed with what I had asked him.

‘I’m not like that anymore, Emma. I do have to
pay him a visit though and warn him about the consequences if he
does something like this again. I will also have to send him away
until this is all over.’ He stopped and looked outside. ‘Harry and
Bessie are visiting.’ he said, gesturing towards my apartment. The
lights were on in the living room and Harry’s car was parked
outside.

‘
Jesus! I can’t go in.’ I said. ‘I’m not
so good at acting.’

‘Do you prefer to come to my place?’ he
asked.

‘I think so.’ I whispered.

I was exhausted. My eyes felt too heavy as my
mind was seeking for remedy into the silent shelter of sleep.
Unable to resist my need to detach myself from everything I had
been told that day until I could take it all in, I fell asleep in
his car, hoping to dream that everything would be as it should be.
Simple. Uncomplicated.

I felt him carry me inside and put me to
bed, as he had done thirteen years before.
But I was
tortured in my sleep, the same as when I was awake, because
nightmares haunted my dreams. In one of them, the most torturing, I
saw myself running across a riverbank, terrified, my face twisted
from fear and screaming. I was being chased. My feet stubbed on
something and I looked down to see it was a rotten corpse. But I
had to keep running frantically, because I could feel my pursuers
behind me were closing by.

All of a sudden, a hand grabbed my arm and
a familiar, velvet voice whispered: ‘
Over
here Emma
.’ I knew I was safe
;
all I could see was Christopher’s beautiful,
reassuring face. I turned to see whether my pursuers had given up
but I saw it was only one pursuer, Christopher, a Bad Christopher
this time, with a devious smile and evil eyes. I
screamed.

I sprang from my bed, waking up by my own
scream. Christopher was lying next to me, his velvet voice trying
to calm me.

‘It’s okay, it’s okay. It was only a dream.’ He
hugged me and pushed me softly back to my pillow. I curled like a
baby hiding my face in the warmth of his chest.

When I woke up, the sun was trying to creep into
the room through the gaps on the shutters. I was in Christopher’s
arms. For one moment the evil face I had dreamt the previous night
appeared in front of me, making me want to run away and hide. I
moved my body slowly, trying not to wake him up, and looked at his
beautiful face. It was so relaxed, so tranquil, so compellingly
attractive that I felt the overwhelming desire to touch it, to kiss
it. There was no chance of escaping from him. That was more than
certain to me now.

I tried to reconsider my feelings for this man.
He had feared that I would hate him and now I knew why. Truly, I
should hate him. He was involved in the tragedy of my life in the
most unforgivable way, a tragedy that had defined my life and me so
irreversibly and in the most dramatic way.

But he had not done it by his
own free will, he had been ordered to do so.
What
would have happened if he had refused to kill my dad? Probably,
both of them would have ended up dead. Theo or Tex, as he had
called his partners, would have finished the job by killing me too.
The more I thought of it, the more convinced I became that
Christopher was no less a victim than my father had been. My father
was so good at reading between the lines and had seen through him.
Christopher was suffering too, this was what my father had seen in
his eyes; the same suffering I had seen the previous
night.

Could I forgive him? I was not ready to answer
this yet. But I knew I did not hate him. It was beyond my powers to
do so. What I felt for him was much, much different. I wanted to
comfort him, stop his suffering, and make it go away because it was
killing me to see him in such pain.

He had said it was selfish of him to ask
for my assistance in his pursuit of absolution and I knew that
whatever he might ask of me, I would give to him unconditionally.
If that was his chance for redemption, he could have it, because I
simply wanted him in my life. He was my soul mate and it had taken
me so long to find him, I just could not let him go. Wasn’t I being
selfish now? Isn’t love selfish and yet unselfish at the
same time? Because I was certain about my love for him. It
overshadowed all the other feelings that had poisoned my heart the
previous night.

He opened his eyes as if he had felt my intense
staring, and I had the feeling the room became suddenly brighter.
He rolled to his side to face me.

‘So, you are still here? I expected you to run
away with the first light of day.’

‘Well, it did cross my mind.’ I said without
taking my eyes off his.

‘What made you stay?’ he
was
smiling, but grief shadowed his eyes now.

‘It is just… impossible for me to
go away from you.’ He was silent for a few moments.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, scrutinizing my
face.

‘Better. Where are we?’ I asked him.

‘It’s my new house. This was supposed to be my
surprise for you yesterday. Not that you weren’t surprised anyway.’
he added bitterly.

‘When did you…?’

‘I didn’t. Suzan did everything. She even did
the decoration.’

‘I like it.’

‘You haven’t even seen it. But I think you will
like it. It does have its own private beach you know!’ He smiled
his disarming smile again and I knew those had been Suzan’s words.
I preferred to talk about simple everyday things. But it could not
last long.

‘What are you thinking right now?’ he asked,
turning serious again.

‘I have so many questions.’

‘I know. I’ll tell you everything you need to
know. That much I owe you. It’s the least I can do.’

He followed the shape of my lips with his finger
and I could feel the heat on my face. I touched his face softly,
following the perfect curve of his cheekbone, his chin, his
neck.