It startled Anette to hear someone uttering her name in the street.
"Anette, come on now," an old woman's voice said, a little annoyed.
She turned quite by instinct, without thinking or considering the fact that the one she expected to see had been dead for more than 20 years. That's why she was so disappointed, even so very sad, to see an old woman whom she didn't know standing there on the pavement, calling to a small girl of 5-6 years.
- Oh, she thought, how silly I am. This is another Anette, not me.
However this incident reminded her of an episode from her childhood and she hurried home, eager to once more browse the old photo albums from her troubled childhood. As soon as she had closed the door behind her she ripped off her coat and hurriedly put her groceries away. She didn't even have time to make a cup of coffée before she took out the albums and, as so often before, started to peruse them.
- This is my Granny's brother Tom, she thought, her forefinger trailing the somewhat matted outlines of the man whom she had never met, but who nevertheless had become a main character in her inner enactings of one of the many family dramas. - He came to a bad end, but wasn't all bad himself, she thought, actually quoting her Granny.
Anette didn't exactly like the idea that her beloved Granny's older brother had died in prison, but couldn't deny that that was the case. He was standing next to his brother, Jonathan, the one and only millionaire in the family. "A hard man," Granny always said, "not one to be loved by anybody and he never married."
The most interesting members of her family were those brothers and sisters of her grandparents whom she had never met, but whom she felt she knew so very well from all the family stories about them.
Her own brother and sister were quite insignificant compared to this much older generation and so she was herself. - What bores we are, she thought, turning the leaves, not much life force in any of us. Her parent's generation was different, as all of them had been spoilt, rich kids and never changing, no matter how old they grew. None of her uncles and aunts had been outstanding people, only more or less lost creatures in a web of social and emotional problems. That was why Granny had been such an important character in her life as well as in her siblings' and cousins' lives. She meant love and protection in a confused family setting.
As to Tom then Anette never knew what landed him in that prison or what happened to him and sitting there, browsing those photo albums, she decided to find out because he was the favorite brother of her beloved Granny. That's why she phoned her cousin Poul and asked him although she knew that probably he didn't know more about it than she did. However, she was mistaken, actually Poul knew a lot although he didn't think so himself.
"I think I even have some letters from him, but I've never read them," he said and her heart jumped with joy.
"Oh, when can I see them?"
"Tonight, your place or mine?"
She felt that perhaps Poul might have more than these letters so she decided to pay him a visit even though his lack of the simplest rules for order and cleanliness usually annoyed her immensely.
When she arrived he had tried to bring some order and even to vacuum clean the room where they were to sit, something she felt was quite touching as he found it so hard to do. She knew that this was not something that happened regularly so she almost felt honored by this attempt to bring order. However, they soon got it all even more messy than before because he pulled out several big boxes, full of letters, papers and old newspaper-clippings. Also they found a few photos some of them of their Granny with her brothers, some of people whom they didn't know.
Tom took out a photo of a handsome, young man and gave it her: "This is Tom," he said, "or so it says in a note on the backside."
"He is quite good-looking," she said, "and so young."
"Yes, 21 which means six months before going to jail."
"I never knew what he did, Granny wouldn't tell me."
"No, but my Mom knew and she told me. It seems that he killed somebody."
"What!!!?" she exclaimed, "Who?"
Poul took out a couple of newspaper clippings. "It says here that he killed his former fiancée, Alice, and her parents."
"That can't be, we would have known about that. Besides, why wasn't he hanged then, being a murderer and everything."
"He was to be, but then he did the hanging himself in his prison cell."
"What a tragedy," she said, "then he can't have been very old when he died?"
"No, 21-22 or something like that. By the way, in other clippings it says that he denied being guilty. He keeps saying that he had been framed by the real murderer."
"Did he say anything about who this "real murderer" was?"
"Yes, our Granny ..."
"What?!!!! How ... when and WHY would she murder his former fiancée?" She was shocked, but even more indignant that anybody could accuse her mild and altogether wonderful Granny for anything this disgusting. Granny meant safety and love as she had done all her childhood, not murder and brothers hanging themselves in prison cells.
"Read the stuff yourself, because I don't quite remember what he said. I only browsed it some years ago and don't remember all of it."
They sat still for some time, looking at the clippings and the photos. Anette's mind was racing with questions, but she decided not to tire him out by asking his opinion before she herself had read all of it.
Returning home she didn't find it in her to go to bed although it was nearly Midnight. No, she simply had to sit down, browsing all these unexpected findings. In the early hours she still sat reading, making notes and planning where to go to get more information. At that time she had found clippings with Tom's accusations against his sister, Ruth, which was very strange for her loving grandchild to read. Never would she have expected to read anything like this against her Granny who was beloved by everybody. To see her described by her brother as a "simpleton", "immoral" and "murderous" was quite weird, also it was against the love her Granny seemingly had felt for this older brother whom she always referred to with respect.
- She was no more than 18-19 when she presumably murdered these three people. What a crazy idea. Wonder what made him believe he could pull that one off, she thought.
The account of the murders was gruesome, all blood and terror when this murderer went for their lives. - It's done by someone who really hated them, she thought. Also that's what she told Poul when he phoned her.
"I know," he said, "and why would she hate those people? The one to bear a grudge is Tom who had been left by his girlfriend because her parents didn't like him."
"And Granny didn't know them too well, I suppose?"
"I suppose so," he answered. "By the way, have you ever heard anything about the rich brother, Jonathan?"
"Not as far as I know," she said, "but he never married so his money was inherited by his sole surviving sibling, Ruth, so in a way he is the one we too should thank for being secured as to money."
He laughed. "Yes, and nobody really knows how he got that money so he too is a mysterious character."
That night Anette dreamt of her Granny as a young girl. She saw her, pretty and smart, as she had looked in the old, faded photos. - This is her as she was, she thought and in her dream she even had a close-up of her face. She felt sucked into her dark, almond-shaped eyes and all of a sudden she noticed how steadfast her gaze was, not at all the gaze one expects to find in a young girl, not even 20 years old. It made her wake up, startled as if someone had sneaked in on her and given her a fright.
As soon as she got the chance she sat down, browsing all those papers and photos. This time she focused on everything pertaining her Granny, but she didn't find very much as she had never been formally accused of anything. Tom was quoted for saying that she "had an interest in the family" and that "she knew them very well". It seemed that that most likely was true about the father as he had been a schoolmaster in the school she and her brothers had attended. "She liked him," he had yelled in the courtroom and Anette felt an unpleasant tingling in her spine reading about it. Could young Ruth have been in love with her schoolmaster? "Like" might indicate several stages of sympathy and he was a very handsome man.
To Anette all this was interesting, but also very, very unpleasant because the Granny she had loved had seemed asexual. She had been a truly motherly type, looking old for her age long before she really was old and the idea of her being in love made her granddaughter smile like it was quite impossible. To her Granny was Granny which meant a set character of love and support, but nothing like a young girl in love with her schoolmaster.
When she sat reading some old clippings the phone rang and this time it was her other cousin, Sarah, who wanted to know what all this about papers and old prison stories were about. When Anette told her she said: "I think Jonathan is the murderer because he wasn't rich until after their death."
"Jonathan? But a schoolmaster can't have been very rich."
"No, but his wife inherited a lot of money from her aunt and after they died it simply disappeared. They had it in the house somewhere, but nobody found it."
"This case wears me down," Anette said, "I hate to think that my sweet Granny or any of her brothers could have been involved in something like this."
"Yes," Sarah said, "but should they be guilty their crimes gave us our freedom ..."
"Don't say that, I hate to think of it. Actually, it's like feeding on corpses."
"Yes, that's a proper way of putting it," Sarah said in a matter of fact-tone of voice.
"It makes me feel guilty as if I had taken part in this slaughtering."
"Slaughtering?"
"Yes, they were cut and stabbed several times, everything was bloodied down."
"Awful! Well, I almost forgot to ask you, but have you seen Granny's diary?"
"What?! No, but I would love to."
"Nobody has read it, but it's supposed to be somewhere in her personal papers."
"I haven't found it so I take it that it's gone. Maybe she burnt it?"
"Yes, but if she did then that's an indicative of guilt."
"I don't believe she did this. Never in a million years," Anette said and as she did she once more felt sucked into those dark eyes with the steadfast glance and she knew that her image of her loving and motherly Granny had been changed forever.
In the afternoon she remembered that some of her Granny's belongings were still in her possession. Some of it was in the attic, while some other parts of it were in her flat which she actually had inherited from her. For instance there was an old carved out couch and she went to take a look at it as she knew it was supposed to have some inbuilt, secret cabinets. She knocked on everything made out of wood and after some time she heard the muffled sound that gives away a hollow part of something. To her the furniture of her Granny almost were sacred so she didn't want to break the wood. That's why she asked Poul over to see whether he was able to open the cabinet with his large collection of tools.
After almost an hour it gave out a little sound like a sigh and a trap door swung open. Quick as ever Anette put in her hand and dragged out a small bag of papers. Among them there was an old diary and it soon became evident that it had belonged to the 17-21 years old Ruth. The first Anette read was: "Today he wouldn't even talk to me. I don't know what to do, his wife also looks funnily at me. Besides, their ugly daughter has ended the bethrothal to Tom two days ago. She is crying a lot, telling everyone that he was unfaithful. Of course he was, how could he love such a horror as this dumb girl?"
Poul looked at her, raising an eyebrow: "What a witch our grandmother was, not exactly generous in her way of thinking."
Anette shook her head, then she read another quote: "This morning he told me that he could never love me. No, but still he wants THAT. He debases me in every way, treating me like a whore. I've started to hate him as much as I used to love him."
"Gosh, they had an affair!"
"Yes, and he treated her badly," Anette said.
She read on: "Someone from Mrs Ugly's family came to bring her her inheritance. She all of a sudden is a very wealthy woman which is quite ridiculous, as all she ever had in her head was the ugly kids, their trite food and her philandering husband. Actually, it's her who ruined Tom's chances with the eldest one. She didn't find him sophisticated enough to marry her ugly daughter."
Then there was one page, filled out with questionmarks and exclamation marks, nothing but that except for the last sentence which read: "I wish it undone, oh, how I wish it undone, but that's too late as Jonathan told me everything this evening."
Anette and Poul just looked at each other. Then he took the diary out of her hand and read the sentence himself. "My God," he said, "if Jonathan tells her about this - which I take to be the murders - then he must know something she didn't know. That makes it likely that he was the murderer, but not her ..."
"I really hope that she is innocent of this crime," Anette said. "But somehow I don't believe that any longer. She may not have done the deed herself, but I'm sure she lead the murderer on to do it."
"We shall never know," he said, "at least not for sure unless one of them made a secret confession to the murders."
They just looked at each other, not daring to speak their thoughts. Then after some minutes Anette grabbed the diary and read the last pages. They were in telegraph-style, only a few words with dots or single letters, like e.g.: "Courtroom": xy or "Tom": sw. No confessions or explanations of any kind.
"I wonder why she kept this diary," Anette said, "it can't have been pleasant to her to read it." None of them knew what to say or what to make of it, but both sat very quiet, deep in thoughts.
That same evening Alice came over and they had a discussion about what to do with the papers and the diary. "I think we should burn all of it. Maybe she is guilty of something, and that's very unpleasant to think of, but why make a stir 50 years after it happened?"
"I shouldn't be surprised to learn that Tom was totally innocent, but that Granny and Jonathan are not," Alice said. "She obviously had something to revenge and as for him he needed the money for his factory."
"But Tom had something to revenge too ..."
"No, not really," Alice said, "he didn't love that girl, and what's more he already had someone else ..."
"So we - and our family - have lived a pleasant life based on murder and the sacrifice of an innocent man in order to get hold of the money that paid our and our parents' way of life?"
"Yes," Poul said, "and as that pleasant life style has become ours we have to think of what to do with all these papers."
"Burn them!" Both of the women yelled. "Right now!"
They sat still for a while, watching the old papers turning into ashes, and once again the image of young Ruth's eyes appeared to Anette. Such a steadfast gaze, such stamina was what it took to sacrifice her favorite brother to obtain revenge and her share of money that didn't belong to her. What an awful knowledge that such a creature, both loving and murderous, was whom she herself descended from. Her DNA, her genes and her blood were from her. Even her dark, almond-shaped eyes were part of the inheritance from this grandmother of hers whom she had loved ever since early childhood. As she sat there her sorrow grew to unbearable measures.
ALL rights reserved
© EC
Originally Posted On Site: 2009-12-07 02:43:54
Last Login: 05.24.12
Visits as of 12-12-07: 142
Comments:
|
|||
|
|||
