Memento

Memento

"I haven't yet understood why he has fixed appointment in a Museum."

"Patrick, you know Lord Clayton better than anyone else, you should know that he's an.... eccentric man."

"Right, and in all these years I've never understood him. Anyway, Tom, you haven't told me if you'll accept his proposal."

The man didn't reply, he just smiled and folded his arms. He was in his early fifties, tall, thin, his dark blond hair faded in silver on his temples, his hard but harmonious features brought the signs of the time; elegant in his gray cotton suit, which jacket dangled on his arm.

"To say the truth, the political career doesn't look more attractive than the legal one."

"Thomas Riddle, since when do you have become so modest? A paragon of virtue like you.... almost twenty years has passed since the last time you have gotten drunk! If I don't remember wrongly, it has been after yours first wife left you for that former schoolmate of her."

"Shut up, I don't want to hear about it...."

Tom grumbled nervously, the forehead pearled with perspiration: it was incredible how all his friends and the neighbors have believed that cheap tale; but in a twisted sort of way, that was his job. He looked at his hands, after all those years they seemed still dirty with blood and kerosene; if he closed his eyes, he saw before him the figure of that young woman -a damn witch, he corrected himself- lying on the drawing room's carpet, an ankle mangled by the heavy console; in his nightmares he saw again those tears, he heard again that weak and agonizing voice begging him. Tom shook the head, chasing that intrusive memory from his mind.

"Looks who's there, Madame Butterfly!"

"Who?"

"How 'who?', don't tell me that you don't know Madame Butterfly, Tom!"

"Er.... No?"

Patrick snorted rolling his eyes and pointed out to his colleague a woman wrapped in gray lace.

"/She/ is Madame Butterfly, White Lilies's owner, the most prestigious brothel in the whole City. I've heard she's the daughter of a Hungarian countess or something: if you want me to introduce her straight away and...."

"Come on, don't you see she isn't alone? That guy has some gut to show with a whore."

Tom replied, eyeing a young man talking with the prostitute: he didn't know why, but he suddenly realized that his child -the child of that damn witch, he corrected himself- should have had about that boy's age. His figure seemed oddly familiar to the lawyer: tall, slender, the physique well shaped under the not quite new shirt and trousers, but worn with inborn elegance. He had a proud and refined demeanor, almost regal; an aura of mystery wrapped him, making his charm even more intense

And he saw himself in the prime of his twenties, driving an old car and, at his side, a young girl with a dislocated ankle glancing at him, a light blush on her cheeks and wrapped by that aura of mystery, so seductive and fascinating, that had subjugated him like a charm.

"Madame Butterfly chooses her escorts quite well," Patrick whispered while the couple advanced admiring the pictures. "that boy would make disappear even Rodolfo Valentino."

Tom tightened the lips, looking sideways at the young man: his friend was right; he was indeed a handsome boy.

Black, curly and dense hair that shone like a dark crown on his head, showing off the pale complexion of his face and chiseled features, slightly hard, and the almond-shaped eyes of an intense honeyed green.

And he saw those same eyes, but chocolate and shaded by black and dense eyelash, that watched him from a place swarming with fears and pleasures; and he saw a similar face, but olive skinned and more delicate and feminine, that lit up with joy and devotion; and he felt under his finger those silky curls, scented with violets and orange blossom, pregnant with the intimacy's perspiration....

Tom tightened his fists, the fingernails sink in the flesh of his palms: why did that woman -a damn witch, he corrected himself- continue to torment him in that way? Why did her ghost deny him the peace he craved so much?

"Good afternoon, Lord Clayton!"

The voice of his colleague brought back him in reality.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Longmont, Mr. Riddle. I hope you didn't wait me so much."

"Do not worry, Sir, we were admiring this exhibition: it is rare be able to see so much paintings without leave our dear old Britain."

Lord Clayton smiled, and he took to expose his projects to the two lawyers; Tom half listened, watching the weird couple that became more and more close: he heard them speak without hear their voices, he heard their laughs, one light and turbid, the other deep and silvery; he saw them smile, thin and covered with red lipstick lips hiding the teeth; and full and fleshy lips with curled corners.

And he saw a similar smile wrinkle likewise fleshy lips, red like cherries and strawberries; lips of which he was never satiated, lips that he had devoured with kisses; he heard again that clear and crystalline laughter, like thousand silver bells, manifestation of an unexpected happiness while a song spread from an old gramophone.

".... And as I have already said to Mr. Longmont, I don't see any difference between politician and magistrate's career."

"But Britain needs men like you, Mr. Riddle, above all in these times. And then it doesn't happen every day to be offered the Secretary of Foreign Office's place"

"Lord Clayton is right, this is an once in a life chance! You, then, deserve it more than anybody else: after what you have gone through and done to arrive

where you are now, this is the least."

"What Patrick, are you devil's advocate?"

Tom laughed while the prostitute and her escort passed beyond; he caught fragments of their words. A voice decidedly deep and virile, but soft and velvety like the pillow smothering the prince in the Tower.

And he heard that sweet and remote voice that from the depths of the sands of his memories called his name mixed with loving words; that voice utter a vow, a yes that times ago had been his life, and the words that were the indelible mark of his crime and that fed the sense of guilt to have broken a young life.

What did it matter? After all she had been nothing but a damn witch.