Part
28.
Dada was awakened by a terrible headache.
She stumbled down to the dining room where she expected
breakfast, but instead found lunch. She was still in a fog. With one eye, she
glanced at the clock.
Zeki greeted her ironically:
- Good afternoon to some, and good morning to others!
Dada paid no attention. She had no desire or energy to
eat; she only reached for a coffee cup and stared at its empty bottom.
The Padrone stood up, took the cup from her, poured the
coffee himself, and arranged her favorite chocolate balls, taken from a drawer
nearby, in an arc on the saucer.
Zeki was filled with resentment. He thought the Padrone
would scold Dada or at least lecture her for yesterday’s behavior. But instead,
he was coddling her.
"He has spoiled her far too much," - he
thought bitterly.
His appetite vanished completely. He nervously tore the
napkin from his neck, slapped it onto the table, stood up, and left the room.
The Padrone did not like Zeki’s behavior, but compared to
Dada’s recent actions, it seemed so insignificant that he left it without
reaction, which irritated Zeki even more.
Meanwhile, Dada did not take her eyes off the balls
wrapped in golden paper, and she did not pay any attention to Zeki.
Her most beloved and delicious treat.
Eh, how she used to love them once, and for so long now,
she hadn't even touched them.
No matter how many the Padrone left for her, she wouldn't
even look at them and would just give them away to the cleaning maid.
Dada began to poke at one of the balls with her finger,
her eyes gradually filling with tears. Then they filled up completely, and
suddenly she began to cry so hard that the tears streaming down fell right into
her coffee cup.
The Padrone laughed. He hugged her warmly, and the girl
began to sob even more bitterly.
The following period turned out to be relatively better.
Dada stopped her mischievous antics. She no longer got on Zeki's nerves.
Although the old Dada was nowhere to be seen, she was no longer the tiresome
and unbearable Dada either; now, a third face of Dada had emerged.
The Padrone was at peace. This third face of Dada was
truly better than that second, unbearable creature. As if nothing had happened,
everything began to take its own course.
One day, the servants bustling about the gallery joyfully
informed the Padrone that Dada was asking for her room to be cleaned.
It was wonderful news; perhaps Dada would feel better
now, perhaps the old Dada had even returned.
The Padrone did not think much longer and offered to go
to the city:
- New paints and brushes will be needed, and it is better
for you to choose them yourself.
The girl nodded her head with joy.
- These long-abandoned brushes, how dried out and brittle
they have become; they are no longer even usable, they should be thrown
away!" the Padrone continued. "And these paints, too? How they have
dried onto the palette along with the dust! We definitely need new ones!
Dada smiled happily and gathered the items that were now
useless to her into one pile.
In the art salon, Dada was overjoyed. She was choosing a
thousand things. Sometimes this, sometimes that; she put many things back, and
added others. The selection was vast, infinitely large. Seeing Dada's
cheerfully shining large green eyes, everyone smiled and joyfully fulfilled her
whims. The Padrone watched her with a happy smile and rejoiced in Dada’s
happiness. She was so happy that there was not even a trace of the old pain,
once settled in her heart, on her face.
Suddenly, Dada turned the color of a corpse. Her eyes
became fixed on something in the shop window. The entire salon gathered around
her.
Dada kept losing her color more and more, and she sank
limply into a chair. She drank water without even feeling it.
"Perhaps she didn't have enough air,"
they said, even waving a fan in front of her nose. No one could understand what
had happened to the cheerful and infinitely happy girl of a moment ago.
Only the Padrone noticed, beyond the shop window, on the
opposite side of the street, the car of the man with the dangerous eyes, and
how a man with Ugo's build got into the car.
The Padrone would have needed to be revived himself had
he not braced himself. His heart filled with anger; only he knew who the man
with the dangerous eyes really was and what he represented.
"Hmm, a 'man'."
The Padrone chuckled viciously.
"A man who had his own family robbed! A man who
did not spare his own relatives, having them all wiped out so that not a single
soul remained alive—he didn't even spare the children—and for what reason?!
All for the sake of that cursed inheritance!
He has neither children nor roots. What on earth does
he need such great wealth for?!
And who cares about his ancient title and ancestral
ranks anymore? What time is it for that? I wonder who even pays attention to
that now, when you are the owner of vast property? That is your title, your
rank, and your name.
But perhaps the matter is something entirely
different? Perhaps he committed all of this for some other principle?
He took revenge on his own family and left no one
alive.
He even had that massive house burned down until
nothing but empty ash remained, and he didn't demand anything from it; he
didn't want any of the loot.
Only the inheritance and the title, as the sole heir
and legal owner."
The Padrone had a hand in all these sins. The client was
the man with the dangerous eyes, the planner and strategist was the Padrone,
and the executor was Zeki with his gang.
"Sometimes, I feel so sick from the abominations
I have committed that..."
The Padrone thought, unable to erase the scene he had
seen from the salon window from his mind.
LEX. Tuesday, March 15, 2016.
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