Devil Woman

I would have liked to stay with them forever, but eternity would have seemed too short.

I had to go through it several times before I managed to write a coherent letter.

I didn't want to hurt this couple who had welcomed me so warmly.

I sincerely liked them, and that's why it was out of the question for me to put their lives in danger.

I reread one last time the little letter I had written in English.

"Inga, Donatello,

I can't thank you enough for being so welcoming to me. You didn't know me, and for a while you welcomed me into your home, into your little traditional house.

I would have liked to stay with you and live here, learn Russian, and maybe even start a life in this country.

But this country is not mine, and this life is only a dream.

I could never put the lives of people like you in danger. It is out of the question that the mafia attacks you. For that I am obliged to leave.

You will always remain in my heart, and for what you have done for me, I am eternally grateful to you.

Take care. I love you.

Elizabeth xox"

I smoothed the blackened paper from my handwriting and laid it on the bed.

I had spent the whole day with this family.

Night had now enveloped the small northern town. Inga and Donatello had gone to sleep less than an hour ago. only a few foodstuffs. I had also stolen a photo of the couple. I wasn't proud of it, but it was the only way I had found to take their faces full of tenderness with me.

I put on the backpack and slowly opened the door. I walked slowly, like a thief, down the hallway of the house.

Passing in front of the door of their room, I felt a twinge in my heart. If I had been selfish, I would have stayed here. I could even have gotten used to this life.

Yet I continued on my way.

Because precisely, when you love someone, you protect them, and I had developed feelings for this couple, so friendly with the stranger that I was.

I went down the stairs and looked one last time at the little house whose three living rooms were bathed in moonlight.

I hadn't been around them for a long time, but when I closed the door, I knew that I was going to miss this family.

I walked through the darkness, finding myself in the city lights.

Here I am again in this city, which is still as unknown to me. Here I am, just as lost as a few days earlier when I had returned to the chubby man.

And the same question came to mind: what was I going to do now?

Never having burned her wings, she did not feel the danger of the flame.

Sitting on the public bench, I looked at the moon. It was not full; it was a small crescent.

She too was missing something.

When my sister was gone, I liked to look at her and think that no matter where she might be in the world, we were looking at the same moon, and somewhere the celestial star connected me to my big sister.

It might have been our mother's darling, but I never held it against her. After all, she was my sister, my blood.

But when she left, I hated her. Not only did she leave me alone—she was my role model—but my mother's indifference towards me was also transformed into hatred.

Since she left, my mother was no longer transparent but black. Every day I was subjected to her criticisms, her remarks, and her humiliations. At the beginning it had hurt me very badly. I answered her by screaming, or then I cried hot tears in front of her, hoping to awaken her maternal side.

Poor kid.

Some time later I had stopped in front of his lack of reaction and understood that we could not force people to like us.

Faced with this heavy fatality, I had made a big decision: never again would I be weak in front of someone.

And it was. Since then I had never cried in public again; I had built myself a shell, and I fled into it as if it had been a fortified castle.

Dreaming of my past, I didn't see myself falling asleep on the cold metal bench.

It was only the next morning, when a policeman shook me, that I realized that I had dozed off in this public place like the homeless people to whom I threw coins out of pity when I was little.

He yelled something at me in Russian that I didn't understand. Seeing my head shaped with incomprehension, he sighed.

I don't speak Russian, I expressed myself.

They were only missing that! Where do you come from?

From California.

He looked at me, and I saw from his expression that he was thinking. It took several long minutes before he opened his mouth again.

Get in my car. I'll take you to post.

I followed him to the small vehicle. Contrary to my bad habit, I fastened my seat belt. I was in the presence of the forces of order after all!

After he had started the engine, he dialed a number. When his correspondent answered, they chatted for a few short minutes, and once he had hung up, he set off.

For a short lapse of time, we drove on a lane at the limit of the highway and the country lane. Then he stopped in front of a car.

Innocently I tell myself that he must have gone and alarmed him that he was badly parked.

I swallowed my saliva with difficulty.

Obviously not everyone had a good Samaritan soul like Donatello and his wife.

Take me one last time to see those places that silenced the din of my dark thoughts.

BASS! POLICEMAN OF MY BALLS! I yelled as Ivan and his men dragged me out of the car. I WILL NEVER BUY YOUR UGLY CALENDAR AGAIN!

On Ivan's usually impassive face I saw the hint of a smile.

I was still swearing at that traitor when the car hit the freeway.

"You're driving me to hell, I guess," I whispered, looking out the window.

No, the orders have changed.

How so? I asked, turning my bewildered face to him.

You escaped the Russian mafia for almost a week; the boss wants to meet the young girl who managed to play his men for so long.

I tried to understand his words, a succession of words that I no longer even expected, while the northern landscape scrolled through the tinted window.

Maybe miracles did happen after all?

When the car slowed down in front of a huge grid, I realized that I might have spoken too quickly.

Because when those metal monsters closed behind me, I knew I hadn't just regained my freedom but lost what little I had left.

We walked through the great post-habitation domain; it was a huge park dotted with trees and cut by the path on which we were driving. I had never seen anything so beautiful.

At least until I see the house itself.

In front of me stood a huge mansion painted white; the front, a small sunken space, had two large columns, which, it seemed, held up the entire dwelling.

I got out of the car and ran to the little fountain opposite the entrance to the little palace.

I stared at the sky blue water, and I smiled in the face of so much beauty. It reminded me of my family vacation; every year we went to the same luxurious hotel, and every evening I had to go and look at the reflection of the moon in the fountain in front of the hotel. It was a tradition in the Rosefield family to go to this hotel. But even the traditions could not resist the disappearance of my sister.

I never saw the reflection of the moon in this hot water again, but the memory of it is intact.

"Ready to discover your princess castle?" Ivan whispers to me before passing me.

Suddenly I noticed the men guarding the entrance, those whom Ivan greeted, and my paradise fell into nothingness. I was not a princess; I was a prisoner. I was not facing a palace but facing hell, and inside I did not expect my prince but the devil himself.

It was now uneasy that I resumed my journey and followed in Ivan's footsteps.

The interior was in no way disappointing, quite the contrary. It was as sumptuous as the exterior.

Maids were running to the right and to the left like the ghosts of the place. Ivan didn't even seem to see them, nor them, nor the guards posted at the four corners of the house, and I wondered what it was like to be as invisible as useful.

It must be excruciating.

Suddenly one of the ghosts was called out to by my captor.

Olga, can you take our guest to the room reserved for her? She should wash, change, and make up before meeting him, don't you think?

The good lady nodded and asked me to follow her. She trotted along the way; even on the stairs I had the impression that she trotted like this.

Maybe it was a tic due to his demanding job? Or a remnant of a child who couldn't stay still?

She stopped in front of a huge double door and waved me in first.