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'"I want you to take off the mask, do you hear me, Erik? I want you to take it off right now!"'
Giovanni made up his mind quite suddenly and stepped out in front of his daughter as Erik made for the stairs. "Don't," he said, trying to instill his voice with authority as Luciana tried to follow him.
"I want to see," she said simply, and expected him to give way. For once, Giovanni stood his ground. "I have to see!" Luciana shouted, stamping her foot. Suddenly, she lunged at him. Her voice howled even more desperately than it had earlier that day. "I want to know! He has to show me what's under there! There's something I don't understand and I want it. I want to know!"
Giovanni was suddenly struggling with an armful of flailing limbs. For being of such a delicate constitution—so petite, so frail—she could be remarkably strong in a passion. But Giovanni held on. For Erik's sake—for all their sakes. Erik was gone now, down the stairs and far away. "Stop it, child!" he shouted, trying to get a grip to shake her. "Stop it this instant! I can't stand it any more!" She paid him no attention, almost screaming now. "You're killing us," he pleaded. "You're killing me."
"What?"
"Luciana . . ."
"What, Papa? What?" She no longer fought him, and she drew herself away, unmindful of her mussed hair and wrinkled dress, which somehow made her look more divinely beautiful than ever. "How is this hurting you? You don't know. You don't know! He's killing me!"
"You don't understand. He—"
"He's killing me, do you hear?" she shouted suddenly. Giovanni felt like crossing himself. She seemed almost possessed sometimes, so consumed was she by her selfishness. She was coming to some kind of breaking point, and Giovanni could sense that she was telling the truth. Something was killing her, but it wasn't Erik. "Do you hear me?" she demanded. "He's killing me! I'm going to die!"
"He loves you," Giovanni said simply, and closed his eyes.
There was silence.
It felt like the highest form of betrayal. The fact that he could see what was happening between these two children and hadn't had the wisdom or power to do anything about it had never seemed to change much, because he had thought simply this: nothing could be changed. To explain to each of them what the other was feeling would be pointless; they were so far from understanding each other that they would never understand what he said either. Neither of them would ever believe it.
And in the end, he'd never done it because either way, he exposed Erik to a tremendous vulnerability. If he told Erik that Luciana had feelings for him . . . he'd react as if his master and teacher had just struck him in the face. The boy would think Giovanni toyed with him, belittled him, was torturing him by trying to suggest something Erik never believed could possibly happen. It would destroy him. And conversely, if she could actually believe Erik loved her, Luciana would have the tools to annihilate the boy completely, and he had begun to realize his daughter would do it, she was so oblivious to anyone but herself.
But he was tired of this game, and it seemed he could not save everyone. If he kept silent, all three of them would be very well on their way to insanity anyway.
"He loves me?" Luciana asked blankly.
He felt as if he had just given a screaming child a toy. She would be quiet for now, but hysteria was always threatening in the background. "Yes," Giovanni sighed, too tired of it all to care.
"But he hates me," she said, staring up at her father with wondering eyes.
She was so beautiful, her voice so tragically innocent. It was not a wonder that she didn't care about anyone but herself; she was so young, so lovely—how could she know any better? "I told you this afternoon: he does not hate you."
"He ignores me! He runs from me! He's so cruel and cold, Papa!" Luciana protested petulantly.
Despite her complaints, Giovanni realized he was making headway. Her tone was of despair and sadness now, a trifle calmed. It didn't mean she'd listen to a word he said, but at least he could talk to her now. "You're cruel to him," he countered gently. "You're unkind to him, always. You use him, Luciana—you had him build your garden bench just so he could work for you."
Luciana didn't object. Giovanni got the sickly feeling that his daughter didn't see anything wrong with using anyone. "I only do that because he's so mean to me," she said finally. Despite the childishness of her reply, Giovanni was startled by her insight. At least she understood that she was cruel to him. At least she saw the reasons why. "And he was cruel before me. From the beginning he ignored me. He's hated me from the moment I got here!"
"He's loved you since the moment you got here," Giovanni said simply. "You know him, child. You know him better than you think. He adores anything that's beautiful."
Suddenly she stamped her foot again and screamed. "I don't believe you! I don't believe you—if he loved me, he'd treat me like he did! I know he doesn't like me; I know it. He doesn't like me because I'm not good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough—"
Not altruistic enough, Giovanni thought sadly, but didn't say it, because it wasn't true. She was as egotistic as anyone he'd ever met, and yet, Erik did love her. "It's because he thinks he's not good enough," Giovanni said gently.
Luciana slapped him. She raised her hand and actually slapped her father, right across the face. "Don't say that," she spat. "He's the best at everything!" And then her hand rose to her mouth in horror. "Oh Papa—oh Papa, I'm so sorry!" Suddenly she was nestling in his arms and kissing his cheek, over and over and over again. "I didn't mean it!"
"You're going back to the convent," Giovanni said firmly, rubbing his jaw.
"No!" She clutched the lapels of his jacket convulsively. "Don't! Don't send me back! I'll die, Papa. I will. I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to . . . you have to understand, Papa, I can't help it! I love him; yes—" she went on wildly, as if he didn't know already—"I love him! And I can't stand to hear you say he isn't good—"
"I didn't say that," Giovanni remarked mildly. "I said he thinks he isn't good enough."
"But he's the best, Papa," she said, sobbing convulsively into his neck, touching her face with cold, little fingers, petting the spot she had struck. "He's the best at everything and I'm so . . ."
"Weak?" Giovanni supplied suddenly. Luciana looked up at him in indignation, her beautiful mouth open, but he plunged on. "The both of us are, Luciana. With Erik, we do not understand what we are dealing with. You're selfish, mia figlia, and I am a recluse. He needs so much more love than we can give him, and we only stand to hurt him. That's why you have to leave, my child."
Her mouth snapped shut. "I'm not going anywhere," she said, and somehow her voice seemed to be firm with determination and weak with fragile innocence at the same time. "Do you hear me, Papa? I'm not going. If I do, I will die. I swear it."
She said the last part so low that he knew she meant it, as he had once known before. This time though, he understood that she would take the matter into her own hands if she could not work herself onto her death bed with her own feverish passions first. Giovanni shook his head wearily, and at last said the thing he had finally realized about his own daughter, which somehow made him feel dead inside already: "Child—you're pretty enough for him to love you. You're beautiful enough to make anyone you want to fall in love with you. But inside—you're ugly, Luciana. Inside, you're not pretty enough for him at all."
Luciana stared at him in shock—too shocked to even move out of his arms.
"Don't be angry with me, my darling daughter," Giovanni said to her gently, and their were tears in his eyes, petting apology in his voice. "It's not your fault. Your ugliness is only a manifestation of mine—you are selfish only because I was. If I had listened to Isabella . . . but no. I spoiled you too much, and it's all my fault. I have no doubt that with anyone else, you would be the beautiful child I know you are somewhere under all that self-love. As it is . . ." Giovanni sighed, looking at her contorted, uncomprehending face. "You're only going to end up hurting him, whatever you do. I don't see why I even tried."
And then, defeated, Giovanni turned and climbed down the stairs. This was the moment he'd been dreading. He'd finally faced all the truths he'd been hiding from for so long, even before Erik came, and in doing so, he had gutted himself and ruined his daughter. There was not a single doubt in his mind that somehow, these truths were going to ruin Erik too—if they had not enough already.
*
She came to him a perfect rage. She always looked most beautiful like that—stark back hair flying, eyes flashing, olive skin heated to a beautiful tone that took his breath away—and he hated her for it. He hated that he couldn't hate her when she was like that; she was too beautiful, even when she tossed insult after calculated cruelty on his head.
Luciana had stood for a long time in the fading light on the roof. She hadn't moved a single muscle for three hours, almost as if she was in a trance—as if she was trying to make sense of her father's words, trying to make them sink in. She hadn't succeeded. They hadn't sunk in at all; she hadn't understood a word her father had said. She just knew this: "He loves you more than he loves me!"
"What?" Erik murmured, glancing up from the make-shift machine at his desk. It was as if he hadn't even noticed the way she'd slammed open his cellar door, her passionate entrance.
"He loves you more than he loves me and I hate you! Do you hear me; I hate you!"
"Mademoiselle . . ." he hesitated. Part of him wanted to know what she was talking about, what she was raging about this time. Part of him didn't care and was disgusted with himself for caring what the brat was carrying on about; he knew that she hated him and had always known it. The rest of him needed her to get out quickly because when she looked like that, she seemed too beautiful for him to stand. "I'm busy, here, as you see. Perhaps another time . . . ?"
"Now," she said, quite simply, and with a turn of her elbow and flick of her wrist, picked up the contraption on the table, and smashed it on the floor.
Erik was up in an instant. It was the second time today she had destroyed one of his things, and this time, he would kill her. It didn't matter that she was Giovanni's daughter, and it didn't matter how much he loved her. Nothing mattered where she was concerned any more, except to get her out of his life and stop this incessant, incredible pain she caused him. He should have killed her hours ago, when she demanded he remove his mask; he should have known then—
He advanced on her, but she didn't even back away. "You can try to scare me; I don't care," she said defiantly, her voice vehement. "I don't care if I die right now—I couldn't care less if you killed me! It would serve Papa right. He loves you more than he loves me!"
Suddenly, Erik stopped, and his hands, itching for her throat, dropped limply to his sides. He blinked several times, and suddenly turned away. "Excuse me, mademoiselle," he said with effort. "You're suffering under some kind of . . . misapprehension." He swallowed. "Your father is my tutor, nothing more."
"You're lying!" she shouted. "You are his son to him! He thinks of you as his child!"
Erik, still turned away, shook his head numbly. "No, you are mistaken. He doesn't. He—he . . . he can't."
"Why are you so stupid?" she demanded, and suddenly she flew at him. She was beating at his chest with energetic hatred. In her wild, impassioned state, the issue was no longer Erik at all. This was something infinitely more dear, that she had loved for far longer, that she had always taken for granted. And now Erik had taken it from her, and she wanted it back, and she suddenly despised the way he had come into her and her father's lives and destroyed everything. She'd never been so incredibly, undeniably jealous. She was so used to getting what she wanted. "You're stupid, and my own Papa loves you more than me!"
He caught both of her wrists in a single, bruising grip, for once actually unaware of her proximity to him, even almost unaware that he was touching her—that soft, sun-soaked skin that he had dreamed at night of simply brushing against him. Instead, he was looking down into her eyes with something akin to fear. "You're the one who's stupid, you fool," he said steadily, his voice low. "Fa—. . . your father loves you; you know he does and you know he always has. You're his favorite and he's spoiled you from the very beginning. I—I am nothing more than his apprentice!"
"He doesn't love me!" she said wildly. "He doesn't love me! He called me ugly!" Erik didn't move to release her, though she struggled. He was held fast by incomprehension, trying to make sense of her words. "He said I wasn't pretty enough for you to love me! Do you think that, Erik? Do you?"
He looked down at her, at the exquisite shape of her face, the compelling color of her lips that seemed to him the very essence of sensuality. The shape of her cheekbones, the fall of her hair, the shape of her young, infinitely desirable body—all struck him once again, as they had so forcefully when he had first seen her, along with the realization that she was close enough for him to feel the heat radiating from her and his hands were touching hers. "Pretty?" he said dumbly, and viciously, she tried to claw at him.
The blankness in his tone had seemed to her to confirm everything she feared: that he thought she was hideous. "How can you be so heartless?" she demanded. "You think just because you're so much more beautiful than everyone else—"
He recoiled far more quickly than he had when she had tried to scratch him or hit him. "What?" he demanded, suddenly angry himself.
"Oh yes," she said simply, letting him retreat as she smiled maliciously and crossed her arms over her chest. "I know your secret. I know all about it. You look like a god under there, don't you? Why do you wear the mask, Erik? Are you trying to spare us mortals? Let me tell you something—don't!"
"What is the point, mademoiselle," he asked, his cold tone seeping into her like acid, "when you only ever see yourself?"
She sneered at him. "I'm pretty enough. I know I am. I'm pretty enough and you know I am and that's what makes you afraid. Well let me tell you something—I don't care what you look like!"
Erik's tone changed, suddenly odd, and his lanky frame was abruptly far more tense than it had been moments earlier, when he had been far more angry. "You don't care?" he repeated, his voice low.
"No, I don't," she replied defiantly, arms still crossed over her chest. She deliberately looked away. "I don't because I will always see you for what you really are—heartless, and cruel—cruel enough to come into my home and take my own father from me!"
He looked away, the tension gone, his voice now only weary. "You know I have done nothing of the kind, mademoiselle."
"You did. It's true! You did. And you thought you could trick me too. You thought you could, because you're so superior, so beautiful." She turned back to him now, accusing. "You hide it, but secretly you know it, and you're laughing at us, aren't you. You're laughing because you think you're so special! And my own papa doesn't love me any more for the sake of your stupid, special face!"
The cellar was very quiet, except for Luciana's sobbing breaths. She wasn't even completely aware of what she was saying. Long ago she'd convinced herself that he wore a mask because he was hiding something wonderful—something even more splendid that the rest of him, because everything he was was more splendid than the rest. The idea of it, the very mystery of it, had always enchanted her—but now it only made her angry. The sheer truth of his perfection had stolen her father from her, and now it was enough to make her want to destroy him.
After a long moment, into the silence, came Erik's voice. There was pain in that tone, and hatred, and his voice felt to her like a long, elegant finger resting on her eyelid and then gently pressing inward, pressing her cornea through the hole of her skull.
"Would you like to see my stupid, special face, mademoiselle?" was all he said.
Luciana caught her breath. "Yes."
Saying nothing, barely moving except for that which was required, Erik lifted his hands and untied the mask. It hung on his face for a moment, until his palm covered the nose of it and the chin, pausing there for a moment, like a flesh-colored spider enveloping a helplessly white and innocent creature. And then he lowered the mask, and Luciana screamed.
She did not stop screaming for a very long time, even when she turned around and threw herself into the corner, banging the walls, bruising her fists, as if she could claw her way out. Quite calmly, Erik settled the mask back over his face and watched her.
He should be feeling anger, hurt, betrayal. He loved her and this is how she acted in response to a single glance of his face. If she had had any substance at all she should have at least been able to do it in private. And yet, Erik did not feel these things. He had long ago gotten used to the fact that he had fallen for a selfish, petty, immature little girl who didn't know the first thing about anything beyond herself. He hated himself for loving her; she was such a spoiled, unworthy, completely trite bit of skirt—and yet it did not stop him from loving her more each day. His sentiments were similar to Giovanni's: she was so young, and so beautiful. How could she possibly imagine that there was anything in the world to consider but herself? At times, alone at night, he had thought that perhaps there wasn't.
He was still young enough to have hoped that perhaps he could have a life with Giovanni—but since Luciana had come, he'd come to understand that it could never be. He'd known somewhere, known deep down inside like a man knows he is going to die, that one day she would see his face and that would be the end: the end of the sideways looks she gave him that almost made him hope, the end of building and creating at the site, the end of what had almost been something wonderful with Giovanni. He'd cried himself to sleep those nights, but now it was something he'd come to expect.
So he held himself aloof, watching Luciana, while within him, something that had once been young and innocent died. He was left with only a detached curiosity as to why she thought she could claw through the wall. After all, the stairs were right there and a knife was close enough if she wanted to kill herself.
Luciana, however, continued to beat the cellar's stones, her thoughts a rampage of sheer horror. He was ugly—he was hideous! He was revolting—he did not have a nose. To think that she could have—have—loved this—this disgusting deformity! All this time she had loved him, thinking he was too good for her—yes! Yes, that is what she had thought! She had not been able to admit it to herself before; she was too full of self-love to admit that anyone could be too good for her, but that is what Erik had been—precisely too good. Precisely perfect. But now—! A monster!
He had known—he had known he was grotesque, gross beyond all imagining, and he had walked among them like a human being. He had known and hid it from them, letting them all believe . . . letting her father believe! Yes, her beloved Papa! He had deceived her father, and poor Papa had fallen for it . . .
'It's himself he hates, child . . . he thinks he's not good enough for you.' Luciana bit her lip, trying to shut out her father's voice with pain. 'The mask, Luciana . . .'
"No!" she shrieked . . . but the truth was not to be avoided. The heart of the matter was that her father had known the true face of this repulsive, misshapen thing before her—he had known, and he still loved him more than he loved her! How in Heaven's name could that be possible? Oh, how she wanted Erik!—Erik, not this monster, this thing!—but her Erik, her brilliant, beautiful Erik, who knew everything about everything, who was so adult and elegant and wise and . . . and so devastatingly attractive—how on earth were he and the monster one and the same—
In despair, she whirled around—and saw only Erik, watching her with detached, curious eyes. And then she was in his arms, burrowing her face into his neck—closer, closer—as if she could get close enough, she could make him go away and there would only be one person there instead of the both of them. "Erik, don't be cruel. Don't be cruel like that to me—I love you; I do, and I know you," she cried into his chest. "I know you," she repeated, "and I know this: that was not your face!"
"Mademoiselle—!" Erik expelled, aghast, falling back step after step until he was against the wall—a foolish thing, since now she pressed still closer, against his chest, her thighs against his, her hips . . . Desperately, he tried to extricate her from him without touching her, his only thought to get away. This was not right; she had gone mad. She did not know what she was doing . . .
"You're not ugly; you're not. I said I wouldn't let you be and you're not!" she cried triumphantly.
Suddenly, Erik went slack against her. The luxurious power she had always loved in his stance, his voice, was gone, replaced with infinite weariness. "Shall I show you again, mademoiselle?" he asked quietly, meeting her eyes, showing her how she was bleeding the life right out of them.
He wasn't serious. Luciana knew he wasn't serious, and so clutched his shirt and drew huge, humid shuddering breaths against his chest. She clutched convulsively at him, the dull coldness of his body, the reassuring thump of his heart, seeking protection from the memory of that face. Of course the monster put a mask over that miscreation. No one should have to see that.
And she had thought him beautiful! How could she have been so blind? How could she have been so unaware of something that foul, despite whatever he chose to put over it? It should have reeked out of his very nature, his hands that she had always found so elegant—dreaming of them touching her—how could she have? His voice, which she had always found so compelling—letting it envelope her as if it was the embrace of an angel.
An angel! A devil. A devil with these same majestic hands, which were now plucking at her dress, trying to get her off of him—this same rich, almost sumptuous voice, begging raggedly: "Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle, please!"
"You wouldn't take it off again, Erik. You wouldn't. It scares me so."
"I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Luciana, please—let go of me!"
For the first time, the fear in his voice registered. Surprised, she pulled back—and saw it in his eyes. He was afraid. Erik was afraid—of her touching him! He knew what he looked like; he knew he was repulsive and that no one would ever, ever want to touch him after seeing his wretched face. He knew! And as much as she hated the fact, her father had known it too. Why hadn't she?
Because you only ever see yourself.
The memory of his words hit her hard. Her father had said much the same. You are selfish, mia figlia . . . "No," she said, and covered her mouth in horror.
"I promise I won't take it off. Just—get out, mademoiselle. Get out of here. Now!"
There was such a wealth of potent, lulling hypnotism in that last command that she almost obeyed. But she was looking at him, how he was plastered against the wall in horror, as if unable to move, and she was realizing this: that Erik wasn't perfect. He had never been, and she had been too blind to see it. He had always been afraid of her, always, because she was beautiful and he was . . . he was not. He was horrendous, in fact—and he was not perfect. She had let herself think and see only what she wanted while he . . . while he suffered. While he physically and mentally suffered, and she had been dying of love for him because he was too perfect and she wasn't pretty enough.
'You are ugly, Luciana. Inside, you're not pretty enough for him at all.' And the hard, simple truth she saw was: her father loved Erik more because Erik was more beautiful than she was.
"Erik," she said presently, almost conversationally, into his sweating, ragged silence. She was like someone talking to an animal in a trap, unaware that the creature before her was hopelessly bleeding to death. "Do you think I'm pretty?"
Erik didn't look at her, merely looked wildly around, as if looking for another way out. She was blocking the only exit; to get there, he'd have to touch her—or else he'd have long been gone. "Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked again, and stepped closer. Her piquant little chin tipped up at him and tried to force his eyes to meet her. "If you tell me what you really think, I'll leave. I'll leave right away. I promise I will."
Involuntarily, his eyes met hers, and slipped away again. "What do you want, Luciana?" he asked her desperately. "What do you want from me?"
"I want you to tell me whether you think I'm beautiful," she said simply, and continued to examine his eyes.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, and forced himself to look at her. "You're . . .I think you're . . ." His eyes closed in defeat as he sagged against the wall. "I don't know what you're doing, or why you're doing it to me," he murmured. "You're torturing me, mademoiselle. You know the truth; everyone knows it." Then quite simply, he looked into her eyes. "You, mademoiselle, are both what bliss and desire look like."
Luciana tilted her head and looked at him thoughtfully. "And you want me. Don't you."
"Yes," he said miserably, and looked away.
She merely nodded. "That's what I thought too." She looked aside a moment, then suddenly: "Take off your mask, Erik."
"What?"
"I said take it off. I'm closing my eyes; take it off."
He was too tired to argue with her. What she had made him say had taken everything out of him, and there was no longer anything to do but obey her. This entire summer had been full of his submission to her selfish, domineering will; why should now be any different? He merely wanted it to be over. He wanted her to kill him—whether she did it herself or left it to the mobs—and have it over with. And so—first checking to make sure her eyes were closed, because he couldn't help himself—he untied the mask once again, and this time laid it carefully on his desk beside him.
And then Luciana, hands finding the back of his head, put her lips on his and didn't stop kissing him for a long, long time.
"You love me, don't you Erik? You love me even if I'm selfish and vain and stupid. You don't think I'm ugly, do you? You love me just as much as you love father?"
"Yes," he said dumbly, too stupefied to possibly think beyond that: yes. Yes, yes—yes! Almost calmly: "Yes, mademoiselle, of course."
"Good. Kiss me again."
*
It can't, Giovanni considered, have really been a good thing. The truth of the matter was that Erik deserved better, and stayed with Luciana because he thought she was the best he could possibly ever have. The boy's thinking, however, was never that economical, never that mercenary. He loved Luciana with a gratitude that went beyond all measure of anything.
And Luciana loved him back, in her own way—never learning to love his face, never once allowing him to show himself to her without his mask again, unless blind-folded or in darkness. She did love him though, that moment of epiphany preserved throughout the remainder of her short life: the realization that she was indeed, all her father had called her: an ugly, spoiled child, that deserved no better than the commonest of men. And she had gotten Erik, which she knew inside was more than she deserved. It was almost worth it, to her, putting up with his deformities, to have gotten someone that exquisitely beautiful to love her.
There was hardly ever peace in the house. It was an adolescent love, at best, one not meant to withstand the wears and tests of times. But perhaps, when it finally came to a head, he would be left in peace, and Luciana would have gained an understanding of the world that went beyond her liquid dark eyes and trembling, dove-like hands—and perhaps Erik might be free at last to find a woman who was meant for him, who he might love without a single barrier between them—even a mask.
Meanwhile, it was worth the pain of their constant, incessant arguing to see his two most beloved children almost happy and in love.