Chapter 29
“Don’t let him have you, Iris”, Ronny says, gripping my wrist
My father throws a disdainful glance at him, before turning towards me.
“We belong to each other, we always have”, he tells me
“It’s hard to believe it after 24 years on my own”, I retort, trying not to surrender
“You don’t have enough elements to understand, but I will tell you everything”, he says persuasively, slowly approaching me
“Stay away from her”, Ronny says slowly, his voice low, as my father keeps moving towards me, seamlessly, his steps slower than Ronny’s words
“Do as he says”, I hear a voice say behind my back
The voice is calm, matter of fact, the way make mine sound is when I am most scared. The voice is mine and it isn’t, because of the rounded edges that my skeptical self has abraded off mine.
My father arches his brows just lightly before recomposing himself.
“Back off, Veronica”, he tells her, but she stands immobile pointing a gun at him
“Veronica”, I whisper, the words chocking in my throat
“You don’t know how to use a gun, what are you doing?”, my father continues, now speaking in a patronizing tone
“Perhaps she doesn’t, but I do”, I hear, and it’s Joshua who materializes from behind the corner of a building
“What are you doing here…”, I think or say, I do not know
People have started to take notice of what’s happening, at first nobody had realized but now the guns are drawing attention. I’m sure someone is going to make a phone call and the cops will be here any minute.
I don’t want them to come and rescue me. Distorted as it may be, this is the first real family picture I have as an adult: my father trying to abduct me, my twin about to shoot him, me suspended in the middle not knowing who and what I stand for.
“I said back off”, Veronica shouts now
And sirens go off at a distance, answering my fears. My father glances in the direction of the sirens.
“I will find you again”, he tells me, before walking away with hasty steps.
I stare at the growing distance between us, tears puddling in my eyes. Then, unexpectedly, he turns around to look at me one last time, his eyes troubled, before running off and losing himself in the wild guts of NOLA.
I hate Veronica for spoiling it all for me. I eye her with burning anger, forgetting that she is the one I searched for in the first place.
She returns my stare with a worried glance, pinched between a corrugated pair of brows, and rapidly diverts her eyes from me
“Remember what I told you”, she tells Joshua
He nods his assent
“Remember”, she repeats, and walks away as my father had done
The sirens fall silent, and I see a policemen step out of his car somewhere at the end of the street, the buzz of the crowd between us
“Come on, let’s get going”, Ronny says
I shake my head no, but I let him guide me. Joshua is behind us, I believe, but is he?
For a moment I feel utterly lost, but then the realization dawns on me. The author of who I am, the authors of all the things that have happened and are happening now, is my father. I have no rational elements to say so, but I know in an irrational and absolute way. Antonio was wrong. I have not been kidnapped against my father’s will, he is the one who planned it all.
Perhaps I am nothing but a scientific creation produced by his cold, beautiful mind. Perhaps he has envisioned each and every single move I will make when subject to a certain impulse. Whatever the truth is, Ronny can only guess at it. He’ll never know the reasons behind my father’s plan, he can know the appearance of facts, never see the full picture.
I must find my father to understand who I am, even if the answer is that I am hollow, nobody.
Loneliness has never wrapped around me thicker than this, but this feeling of emptiness is electrifying. I am no longer scared and I don’t long for human love. I am simply curious about this game, thrilled to discover the pattern of the chessboard on which I am moving.
Tonight I will find a way to get away from Ronny, whatever that will take.