Muse by Rebecca Lim
Gia sees me wince and brings the tumbler of water to my lips. I drain it in one go and gesture at her to get more.
She hurries to do so, then says, ‘It’s almost five thirty. We need to make a decision about whether you do the show. You’ve been asleep for almost eighteen hours. While you were … gone,’ she hesitates and tears fill her eyes. ‘Terrible things have happened. All these towns — Domaso, Gravedona, Rezzonico, Menaggio, Tremezzo, Argegno, Laglio, Urio — people are saying they’re all gone. They’ve been swept away …’
She spins clumsily, before feeling around on the end of my bed for something.
‘… by fire.’
My eyes widen as Gia puts her hand on the remote control for the in-room television and the screen flares into life.
People wail and shriek and stumble blindly around before us, through smoke, through walls of flame with strange colours at their heart — gold and silver and the palest, most luminescent blue. Trees burn, retaining walls, stone buildings, vehicles, shops, bus stops, car parks, street signs, infrastructure of every kind, all incinerated by a kind of fire that resists water, chemical retardants, every ingenuity known to man. They burn and burn until they simply burn out, and there’s nothing left but an ash so fine it is borne away on the wind.
We watch in horrified silence as the news services on almost every station, in every major language in the world, show clip after clip caught by ordinary people on the ground who woke in the midst of Armageddon.
When the same clips and hysterical voices start to recur, Gia turns off the television, tightening the sash of her kimono as she walks back to her armchair to retrieve her phone. ‘The fact Giovanni is going ahead with the parade is a highly sensitive issue. Half the world will be waking to the news of the incredible devastation that just fell out of nowhere on one of the most highly developed nations in the world. Oh yeah, and that’s what people are saying — that fire fell out of the sky; flames, they’re saying, came down through the trees.’
I have to wrap Irina’s thin arms around her bony knees to stop myself falling over. Am I somehow to blame for unleashing my nightmares, for unleashing Luc, upon the physical world? Has he changed so much? Or have I?
Gia’s voice is husky from crying. ‘The dress rehearsal at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele will start in one hour — we’re already an hour late for hair and make-up,’ she says quietly. ‘It’s a big, big deal, this parade. Giovanni managed to shut down the entire Galleria for more than twenty-four hours. Do you have any idea how hard that is to do?’
I shake my head numbly, still groping for some kind of connection between the Luc I fell in love with, and the force of absolute ruin I witnessed in my dreams.
Gia points her phone at me. ‘Giovanni will need to know if you’re still in. He’s intending to donate all the proceeds from the documentary and the touring retrospective to the victims of the fires. Some will say that Giovanni Re is going on with his self-congratulatory fashion parade as if nothing has happened, but we will know that he’s doing it to help, to celebrate life. Most of the models are donating their appearance fees to the rescue and rebuilding efforts. Your fee alone is something in the order of two hundred thousand Euros. Make it count. People always say that fashion doesn’t matter, that it’s all as disposable and meaningless as candy. But if we can use it to rebuild lives, rebuild concrete things? Then that has to be a good thing, right? A great thing.
‘So I need to know if you’re in,’ she continues, her voice growing stronger, ‘and then we need to get to work on a number of levels. You need to walk like you’ve never walked before. You can’t be seen to be anything other than perfect, savage and indomitable. Now get up.’ Her voice is suddenly harsh. ‘And follow me.’
I trail Gia out of Irina’s bedroom unsteadily, crossing the suite into the room that’s been turned into an impromptu walk-in wardrobe. It’s still a complete bombsite, and I don’t know how Gia is able to locate the exact pair of shoes she’s looking for amongst all the bags and cases.
She holds them up for me to inspect. They look like ordinary stilettos in a shocking red colour, except that the heels have to be eight inches high.
‘That’s it?’ I say. ‘You just want me to walk around in those and I’m good to go?’
‘You were very unconvincing yesterday when you put the black Loubs on,’ Gia says with a frown. ‘I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It’s like driving a truck — if you can reverse park one of those babies, driving any kind of car after that is a breeze. Walk in these, and the crazy-tall bondage boots Tommy’s organised for you to wear with the black strapless number, and the heels he’s paired with the bridal gown? Will be a cinch.’
Gia’s face suddenly clouds over. ‘It just occurred to me that you gashed your feet pretty badly last night on broken glass. They looked like raw meat while the doctor was cleaning you up — I was almost sick. You’re probably bleeding into your dressings right now.’ She points the shoes in her hand at me.
I look down to see that my feet are heavily bandaged. I hadn’t registered the fact until now.
Gia sighs. ‘Maybe you will have to pull out. You’ll be lucky to manage a pair of kitten heels, if you can even walk for any extended period of time. Sit down on this case and let’s look at the damage.’
She hunkers down on the ground, placing the red heels beside her, and carefully unwinds the bandages around one foot. She takes my heel gently in one hand, lifts it and studies the sole, before doing the same with the other foot. She rises, crosses her arms and just looks at me uncertainly, her face paper white.
‘How bad are they?’ I say.
‘See for yourself,’ she replies, and her voice is almost inaudible.
I lift up one foot, then the other: they’re both pink-looking, healthy. There are black stitches up the instep of one foot, but no apparent reason for them to be there. The flesh around the surgeon’s thread has already healed.
‘You didn’t see what I saw last night,’ Gia says shakily. ‘The doctor removed a shard of glass from one of your feet that was at least two inches long.’
She waves one hand wildly in the air. ‘It’s got something to do with you, hasn’t it?’
I close my eyes briefly and see fire like liquid death overtaking everything in its path and that feeling of intense horror and shame returns. Did I do that? Did Luc?
Gia has my full and sudden attention as she says, ‘They’re all saying you’ve lost it, but I don’t think you’re crazy. You thought you saw someone on the road, and you tried to save him, right? I saw you dive past the window. I saw you land. You landed on your feet. And I think I’m the only one who caught that. Maybe it’s me that’s going crazy because it wasn’t an accident, was it? You look like Irina, you even sound like Irina, but I’ve been listening, really listening to you speak, and the things you say? The words you use? You’re someone else altogether. Something else. How is that possible? I want to know.’
She’s right that I’m good with words. I find comfort in them, they hold no fear for me and I will use them like a weapon if I have to. Maybe it’s a skill I’ve developed over time, maybe I’ve always had it. It’s one thing I know I’m good at and I can’t hide it, whoever I may be or become. In the end, I can’t ever be anyone else except myself. It’s both a strength and a weakness. I’ve always been too full of pride, too much of a smart-arse to just play nicely. For many years, maybe it was all I had in each new life I was forced to assume — the ability to talk my way out of a minefield.
Gia flinches only slightly when I raise my eyes to hers. She’s a brave woman. I don’t need to touch her to know that fear and fascination are at war in her right now.
‘Why aren’t you afraid of me?’ I rasp, answering her questions with one of my own. ‘You should be.’
Her eyes are huge in her small face. ‘You just told me to save myself. If you were truly … evil, wouldn’t you have harmed me already?’
‘I’m not evil,’ I murmur. ‘Well, not any mor
Gia’s eyes widen at my words.
‘You have nothing to fear from me,’ I say quietly. ‘I’m just a creature who needs help and affection and understanding, like everyone else does. I’m trapped, and so is Irina, for her sins. And there are so many things that I want — but what I want more than anything, is to be free. And then things like love and vengeance and truth? I’ll be able to work out for myself again. I’m sick of being acted upon. Of being judged. Of being at the … mercy,’ I feel my mouth twist, ‘of others.’
Gia adds tentatively, ‘You don’t really have a brain disease, do you … Mercy?’
I have to laugh, but when I do, the pounding in my head intensifies unbearably and I have to take quick, shallow breaths to get the pain back under control.
‘In actual fact, I probably do,’ I gasp. ‘I can’t remember things, important things, even simple things, about myself. This thing that’s happened to Irina, it’s happened before, I’ve “been” different people hundreds, maybe thousands, of times. And these “lives”? I think it used to be years between each one, but now the time frames are speeding up, getting shorter and shorter …’
‘What are you?’ Gia breathes.
I glare at her and she takes a step back.
‘Why must you people always ask?’ I growl. ‘Why must you always insist that your curiosity be satisfied? Be grateful that I do not wish to snap you in half like a twig.’
It’s just an idle threat on my part, but Gia goes pale. The feeling of fear that hangs about her, like a presence, seems to ratchet up a notch.
I wave a hand at her to diffuse my words. ‘I’m older than you are,’ I say, ‘for all the jibes I made earlier. And I’m tired. A tiredness that sleep cannot mend. I thirst, I hunger, for freedom. I do not thirst, or hunger, for your blood.’ I laugh at the words, but it’s a despairing sound.
She hovers beside me, uncertainly, and I say harshly, ‘Go, while you can. People, like me, are coming for me soon.’
Her unusual eyes, one blue, one brown, grow even wider, more fearful.
‘When I … leave Irina,’ I add more gently, ‘it could get … messy. It has to happen sometime before Irina’s scheduled to leave Milan. Maybe we should pull the plug on all this. I don’t want to be responsible for anything happening to Giovanni or his final collection. This time it’s me calling the bad luck down on everyone. It’s not Irina’s fault.’
‘Don’t you see?’ Gia says. ‘It doesn’t matter what you decide, because the thing you’re so afraid of is already here, it’s already happening. You can’t stop it. So you either give in to your fear, or just carry on. What other choices are there? You’re just going to submit? Give up? That doesn’t gel with what I … know about you.’
We stare at each other for a long moment. ‘I can’t be responsible for you,’ I warn. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you …’
I look down at my hands, and for a moment I see Lela Neill’s small, capable fingers and trim wrists. She’s going to be buried on Monday. I hug myself tightly so that Gia will not see me shaking.
She reaches out and gives my shoulder a small squeeze. ‘I can take care of myself,’ she replies quietly. ‘What do you think I’ve been doing all this time?’
‘Now just put them on,’ she says, pointing at the red shoes, and I hear some of the customary steel return to her voice. ‘And start channelling Irina, wherever the hell she’s gone. I’ll work out something for you to wear.’
‘No, no, no!’ Gia shouts, throwing up her hands as I flounce towards her up the ‘runway’ she’s cleared down the centre of the sitting room. ‘More hips, more hair, more arms, less shoulder. Chin up, head back, bum in … This is hopeless.’
Her mobile phone rings and she waves both hands frustratedly at me to stop.
She’s speaking in rapid Italian but I understand every word she’s saying to whoever’s on the line. ‘Another hour,’ she pleads. ‘Run through the other girls first without her, and as soon as we arrive do a final run-through with Irina’s looks included, okay? No need for hair and make-up. There’s no time. Yes, I know, but yesterday she could barely walk …’ She shoots me a look. ‘Yes, yes, I understand, but her feet are still a little sore. We’re just giving them a final assessment before we head over. No, she doesn’t need more sedatives, it’s the last thing she needs. She’s just very stiff. We’re just doing a few … stretching exercises’ — I have to stifle a laugh — ‘and then we’ll get down to the cars. I’ll call you if there’s any delay, okay? I appreciate your patience. Ciao, bello.’
She hangs up and glares at me. ‘We have a serious problem. A five-year-old girl could do better “top model” than you can. The models Giovanni’s assembled for this love fest are the best-of-the-best, and they’re mostly humourless robots spliced with piranha — they will eat you alive then fight over your bones, and your clothes. You have to get this right or Irina’s ruined anyway. Her new donkey walk might even push the Lake Como disaster off the front pages. As soon as everyone at the Galleria gets a load of the way you’re moving right now? Pandemonium.’
I can’t even visualise the things she’s told me to incorporate into my walk, let alone put them all together.
‘Could you have put me in jeans that are any tighter or longer than these?’ I complain as I duck-walk past her. ‘And what’s with the chain mail shirt? The gold dress Giovanni made for me is lighter than this.’
‘Oooh,’ Gia snarls, ‘I wish I could show you how Irina does it!’
I’m suddenly reminded of the memories I lifted straight out of Giovanni Re’s head when I touched his skin that first time. Of how Irina had gotten up on that makeshift catwalk and transformed from a sixteen year old with bad hair, clothes and eye make-up, into a steely-eyed, ground-shaking Valkyrie.
‘Is this how?’ I say as I recreate how I saw Irina move in my mind’s eye.
I pivot sharply at a point near the front door of the suite and stalk back the other way, pausing dramatically near the dining table Gia shoved to one side before angling my body first one way, then another, and pivoting again to stalk back down the cleared area towards her. To say there’s a tearing pain in my arches, ankles and calves from trying to move quickly in the eight inch heels would be a giant understatement. Everything is simultaneously numb and on fire.
Gia’s tight expression clears as I get nearer to her. ‘Better,’ she breathes. ‘That’s much closer to the way she walks — we can work with this. But straighten your head and neck — imagine a string pulling you up by the top of your scalp. Loosen your arms, but don’t throw them out too wide; more weight on the ball of the foot, more length between the steps; and the eyes, give me knowing and sultry and —’
‘Go to hell?’ I finish for her.
I make subtle adjustments to Irina’s posture, her speed, her stalk, and do the pause, angle, pause, angle I picked up out of Giovanni’s memory, then pivot and power back down the room away from Gia. When I get there, I place Irina’s hands on her bony hips and look at Gia over my shoulder, shaking out Irina’s mane of burnt caramel-coloured hair.
‘Exactly,’ Gia murmurs. ‘You’ve got it. That go-to-hell stare of hers. It’s perfect. Better than perfect. There’s nothing robotic about you, you don’t seem as jaded as Irina’s been lately. She’s been phoning it in. But you? It’s like you’re doing it for the first time.’
I burst out laughing at her words, and Gia — looking startled — can’t help but join me a second later.
‘I suppose you are,’ she says.
But then her laughter dies and she doesn’t say anything more for several minutes, she just twirls her fingers a few times, indicating that I should turn, keep moving, turn, keep moving.
The doorbell suddenly peals loudly and Gia claps her hands.
‘You need fuel, right? That’s what you called it the other day; it kind of stuck in my head when you said it, because Irina likes to pretend that food is entirely unnecessary to sustain life. Let’s have a quick pit stop to g
‘Juice, toasted panini filled with roasted vegetables and goat’s cheese, fruit salad,’ Gia says as she lifts the silver domes off the food on the tray. ‘Just eat. We can move all this furniture back later.’
We perch on armchairs close to each other as Gia fires questions at me.
‘You thought you saw a …?’
‘Dog,’ I reply firmly, taking a bite of the still warm, golden-brown, crescent-shaped sandwich. ‘A large dog. Standing in the road. Directly in front of the car.’
‘O-kay,’ Gia says with her mouth full, ‘that could work. But why couldn’t anyone else see it?’
I take another big bite of my panini, and lick a splodge of thyme-encrusted goat’s cheese off my lower lip as I think. ‘I had a reaction to the stuff Felipe put in my drink. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know the drink was spiked. Felipe’s not around to contradict me, is he?’
Gia shakes her head. ‘Won’t wash. Giovanni’s physician took a blood sample and it showed negative for traces of drugs or alcohol. You were stone-cold sober and drug-free when you saw that “dog”. How do you explain that?’
I finish my sandwich, and drain the glass of pineapple juice Gia’s placed in front of me in one hit before reaching for the bowl of fruit pieces and a fork. ‘The way I tried to pass myself off to you as Irina,’ I say, as I chew. ‘I have a mental illness …’
Gia’s eyes widen and she puts her panini back down on the plate on her knees. ‘And what Felipe gave you exacerbated some underlying condition you’re too afraid to have checked out. It’ll mean a stay in a rehab facility in the not-too-distant future, but even though you’re feeling very fragile, you’re physically well enough to do one last charity appearance …’ She crosses back to the trolley and puts her half-eaten panini back on it. ‘Works for me.’