Broken Serenade (22 page)

   
As she inched her head forward, Vivien saw the birthmark on her ankle first. It was as she always remembered it - unsuccessfully covered with foundation. Then she noticed the anklet at her other foot. The young woman gasped and lifted her eyes. It was indeed
she
.

   
Vivien stared at her face as it appeared in that weakening light. The red candle had melted almost entirely. It had leaked on her piano, leaving a hideous red wax stain - like a pool of coagulated blood. Vivien started to shake uncontrollably.                        

   
“Mademoiselle Lili,” she whispered involuntarily.   

   
“Vivien, my dear child!” the woman exclaimed emphatically, turning toward Vivien her cadaveric face full of black spots. “Listen carefully, missy!” she hissed through her broken and blackened teeth. “If you dare to fall in love with him, I will kill him,” she threatened with a beastly grin. “I made a mistake the first time. You see, I killed her. Now it’s his turn. And if it happens, it’s all your fault, sweet love,” the woman specified, and a hysterical, diabolical laughter erupted wildly from her throat. She tilted her head back, and it seemed strange that her thread-thin neck did not break.    

    Invigorated suddenly by the vital need to save her lover,
Vivien got up and ran back into her bedroom.
I must get out of this haunted house! I must find Tee and warn him that she’s after him
, she told herself, pulling frantically to open the window.

   
In an instant, her nightmare took unimaginable proportions. Someone had erected a brick wall in front of her window.

   
The fear conquered her being, fluid and lethal like a powerful poison. It flowed rapidly through her exhausted body, turning the blood in her arteries and veins into solid ice. Her mind began to collapse, eclipsed by black, morbid thoughts. With her last drop of strength, she called her lover, knowing painfully that he couldn’t possibly hear her.

   
“Teee! Teee!” she screamed writhing helplessly into the terrible claws of horror.

*                                            *                                           *

    Timothy awoke slowly and peacefully. At leisure, his content mind sent him delightful messages that filled his soul with happiness. It was the second morning he was waking up in his lover’s bed. For a moment, he even thought that Vee was already up, and that she had begun to caress him. He could feel her leg moving rhythmically along his. He turned his head and saw her lying there beside him with her eyes closed. Her eyelids were quivering. In fact, her whole body had a slightly perceptible tremor. As he got up on his elbow, she started to moan, visibly in distress, and she called his name in repeated, barely heard whispers. Timothy touched her face gingerly with his fingers and his lips.

   
“Vee, I’m here. Vee, my love, wake up! Vee…”  

   
Vivien opened her eyes, frightened to tears. She wrapped her arms around his neck and began to sob uncontrollably. He pulled her closer to his powerful chest and rocked her gently.

   
“Shush, my love, it was only a nightmare. I got you now, baby.”

   
Her mumbling sounded like an excerpt from a Dadaism poem. After a while, her crying subsided, and her words began to make some sense.

   
“I saw her, Tee,” she said through sobs. “Now I know she’s not dead. And she wants to avenge the death of her lover. That’s why she’s back! She wants to kill you this time, Tee!” she uttered terrified.  

   
“Vee, calm down, my love! Nobody is going to kill anyone. You had a bad dream, that’s all. Whom did you dream about?”

   
“Mademoiselle Lili. And it’s not only my dream that I’m worried about. I actually saw her in the flesh! I did! She came to Arlene’s memorial service. She was inside that church. As she left, I caught a glimpse of her ankle, the one with the birthmark. I even felt a faint whiff of her favorite perfume.”

   
“Vee, Lili is dead,” Timothy said calmly. “I saw her corpse. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”  

   
“It wasn’t her body, Tee…” Vivien argued.

    “Vee
, put a stop to this madness.”

    “But I saw her. Why can’t you believe me?” she insisted.

    “Vee, you had a nightmare. Now pull yourself together, baby! Lili is dead. Period. Don’t trouble your mind with such a thing. Just stop thinking of it,” he said, kissing her tear-wet face. “Make love to me and forget all that’s sad and bad in this world,” he urged her.

   
“Tee, how many breasts did the corpse have?”

   
Timothy sighed exasperated, but continued to kiss her.

     “Vee, please
! Maybe you should consult a doctor, baby. Sometimes it helps. It’s worth to try. I’ll come with you if you want me to. It worries me to see you so affected by a bad dream.” 

     “Tee,” Vivien called
firmly, holding his head in her hands. “Look at me!” she asked him, lifting his head from her naked bosom. “I’m not crazy. OK? I’m terribly scared, that’s all. Now, answer my question. Please. How many breasts did that dead body have?”

   
“What do you mean? Two, of course. Half incinerated, but surely two.”

   
“Come with me,” she demanded flatly, getting off the bed.

   
Timothy groaned frustrated. He wanted her so badly. Vivien hurried toward the door. His eyes followed her, mesmerized by the reflections of her skin in the warm light of that sunny winter morning.

   
In the doorway, she paused and called him again.

   
“Tee, come along, honey! Please! You must watch something. It’s going to make you reconsider what you witnessed that day.”

   
The man heaved a long, deep sigh and obeyed reluctantly. His hungry gaze refused anyway to be torn away from her body.

   
In less than a minute, Timothy was watching Igor’s tape. Taken aback by the intriguing scenes, he was mostly speechless through the entire film. From time to time, a softly spoken “Oh, my God!” left his lips. As the tape ended, he hurried to voice his inculpability.  

   
“Vee, that’s not me in that jacket,” he said in an unwavering tone. He was starting to get over the initial shock. “You have to believe me. I did have a jacket like that one, but I lost it at a baseball game a couple of weeks before the wedding. Someone could’ve stolen it from me. And I had no idea about these women’s… unusual relationship. It never crossed my mind that Nadine would have such sexual preferences. At least now, I can explain why she never slept with me. I was so naïve to believe the lies she told me, that the wedding night was a special night for her,” he added smiling ironically.

    “Well…
It must’ve been special indeed, but in a terribly wrong way, I’m afraid. At least for her, poor Nadine.”

   
“Who gave you this tape?” 

    “Igor. Just before the accident. Well, it’
s a long story. Actually, he left it for me at the studio. But that’s not important now.” 

   
“Is this the reason why you suspected me of killing Nadine?”

   
“Partially,” Vivien admitted embarrassed. “But now, I hope you understand why I think that Mademoiselle Lili is not dead. She missed a breast. You noticed that. The burned corpse you, people, found in that house was someone else’s. I know you didn’t kill Nadine, Tee. I wouldn’t believe it even if you told me that you killed her. Still, I have this intuition that Nadine is dead. Igor thinks so too.”  

     “Maybe Lili killed her,” Timothy suggested
, surprisingly composed. “Because she wanted to marry me. Lili could’ve done it out of jealousy. However, I can’t imagine how she convinced her to write that absurd letter she signed
your sweet love
. I’m absolutely sure it’s Nadine’s handwriting. And it doesn’t seem that she’s been forced to write it. It shows beautiful, precise, unstressed calligraphy. I still have it in a drawer somewhere - a sad memento of that day. I kept it on purpose, as a reminder that I shouldn’t trust women.”

    Vivien bit her lip and smiled sadly.
Timothy touched her face gently and followed the contour of her lower lip with his thumb.

    “But now it’s
time to throw it away,” he said, leaving a quick kiss on her forehead.     

   
“That letter wasn’t written for you, but for Lili,” Vivien told him. “I think Nadine truly loved you, Tee. She really wanted to marry you.”

    “How do you know all these things, Vee? You were only eight
years old,” he said sentimentally, looking at her from head to toe, as if he were seeing her for the first time after all these years. Without another word, he gathered her in his strong arms and pressed her on his hard and desire-filled body. The skin-to-skin feeling sent waves of pleasure through both of them.

   
“A few hours before the planned wedding, I was in Lili’s house,” Vivien spoke with her lips on his chest. “Nadine was there with her. I was probably the last person – besides Lili, of course – to see Nadine alive. Can you see, now?” she asked, lifting toward him her fairy-like eyes clouded with passion. “I’m not that crazy,” she stated, guiding him boldly to her welcoming paradise. “Maybe… a little,” she smiled seductively, moving her hips, eager to receive him even deeper.

   
“But I am, Vee,” he admitted in ecstasy. “I’m crazy… about you, my love…”

   
With his right pointer finger, he traced a winding line that started from between her round and full breasts and descended to the point where their bodies united.

   
“I’m so madly in love with you,” he whispered in her hair.

   
Sometime later, they were lying on the living room sofa still closely embraced, breathing on each other’s lips, and waiting for their pulses to return to normal.

   
Vivien’s landline phone began to ring.

   
“Don’t pick it up,” he pleaded with her.

   
“It is mom. If I don’t answer, she calls again… and again… and again… The more she calls, the more explaining I have to do. Or even worse, she leaves a message longer than the answering machine’s tape.”

   
“Tell her that you couldn’t pick it up because you were making love to me.”

   
“Good morning, mom!” Vivien greeted on the phone, as she signaled Timothy to keep silent. “I’m fine. Safe and sound! You shouldn’t worry about me. And you don’t have to check on me every single morning, mom,” she added in a hurry.

   
“I didn’t call yesterday,” Alison Hopkins exculpated herself from her daughter’s insinuating remark. “You did, Vivien dear. Suspiciously early, I noticed! Anyway, who’s with you, Vivien?” her mother asked confidently. 

   
“How in the world did you find out so fast? Ok, mother. It’s better you hear it from me directly. Tee is here. We spent the last couple of days together. And I’m… I’m very happy, mom.”

   
“Oh!” her mother exclaimed surprised. Obviously not pleasantly surprised, as Vivien sensed. “I thought your boyfriend was with you. You should give that poor guy a chance, dear. He’s a delightful person, and he comes from such a good and influential family! ”  

   
“Mother, Mark is history. Tee is my boyfriend now.”

   
“Yes? Aren’t you a bit too hasty, child? You didn’t even mention his name the day before yesterday. And now he’s your boyfriend? I want to talk to him,” she demanded firmly.  

   
“Mother,” Vivien lamented, rolling her eyes.

    “Only a few seconds, dear. No need to panic, just
put him through,” her mother insisted. 

   
Vivien handed Timothy the receiver. Her darling face wore an embarrassed, childish expression.

   
“She wants to talk to you,” she whispered. “Can you bear it?”

   
Timothy nodded enthusiastically and took the receiver. He intended to get off on the right foot with his most likely future-mother-in-law.

   
“Good morning, Mrs. Hopkins!”

   
“I don’t doubt for a moment that the morning is extremely good, especially for you, young stud,” Alison Hopkins replied quite stiffly. “You’ve been screwing my daughter all night long, haven’t you?”

    Her unfriendly
and quite spicy tone took Timothy aback. He recovered quickly and answered her question to the best of his knowledge!

    “Well…
yes. More precisely, I made love to your daughter last night and the night before,” he informed her.  

    Vivien blushed and covered her face with her hands. She gave a muffled giggle on his shoulder.

    “Is that so?” her mother scoffed at his reply. “What I’m going to tell you now, young man, shouldn’t find its way to Vivien’s ear in any way. That, of course, if you don’t want me to put you directly on my black list. So, it’s all clear now?”