Ruins of Autumn

20• Broken Red

 
    Blerimi unbuckled his seat belt and sighed deeply in dilemma before opening the door of his car.
 
    The motivation that he had when he had left for Denada's house, the deep desire to meet Leonora, wasn't enough to knock on his cousin's house, where she was that evening too.
 
    He had called Denada and invited her out, but she had refused with the argument that she would stay at home with Leonora, who would spend the night at her house since Albioni was at work.
 
    He looked at the balcony of the apartment on the second floor of the building further in front of him, the bright light reflected from the closed transparent curtains, and guessed that Leonora was there at those moments, without having the idea that he had come to meet her.
 
    Missing her was torturing his soul with every day that passed without seeing her, and he thought that he could quench that longing just by looking at Leonora, even for a moment. 
 
    He didn't want to get her into trouble—Albioni to find out that he had gone to visit Denada's house, to suspect that there was something between him and Leonora, and the latter to suffer the consequences of his carelessness—but perhaps Albioni wouldn't find out. How would he know? Denada wasn't going to tell him, because she wasn't that close to Albioni to tell him who had been at her house, and he knew for sure about Leonora that she wouldn't tell Albioni anything, for the same reason as Blerimi.
 
    Only two minutes. He opened the door to get out of the car, more motivated than a moment ago. He would only look at her for two minutes, and then he would leave.
 
    'And after that moment?' he asked himself. What was he going to do if he wanted to see her again? Would he make the excuse that they were meeting by chance and risk getting into trouble? What if they weren't as lucky as they had been until those moments? What if they were then lucky, and the next time they would suffer for all the times before? 
 
    He would be interested in how Denada was; maybe she had a problem and needed help, and then he would leave.
 
    He got out of the car, closed the door slowly, still in doubt that the right thing was to run away, and walked, disregarding his conscience, towards the entrance of the apartment building. He repeated once more the reason he had thought, to justify his presence in the same place where Leonora was, and knocked on the white door.
 
    "Blerim?" Denada welcomed him with a look of surprise on her face as soon as she opened the door, and Leonora in the living room immediately turned her gaze to the corridor with her heart swollen with emotions, as if it had been touched with a skewer, as soon as it guessed that it could be him.
 
    "Good evening."
 
    His affirming voice added more to her heartbeat and allowed joy to rise above the depression for a few moments. She wanted to get up from the brown leather couch and meet him, but reality didn't hesitate to show her mercilessly that she didn't have the luxury to see him whenever she wanted, but to hope that fate would be with her and Blerimi would come in.
 
    "I called you a little while ago to ask how you're doing, but you didn't answer my call, and I got worried," said Blerimi. "I thought about coming to see you if you have any problems."
 
    "I haven't gotten any phone calls or messages that I have missed calls..." said Denada in surprise.
 
    "Maybe the phone didn't have a signal," he assumed. "The important thing is that you are well. Good night."
 
    "Come and have a drink. Since you came all this way," she invited him in and opened the door more. "Nora and I were watching TV."
 
    "OK, thank you," he accepted the invitation and went inside.
 
    Leonora fixed her breathing and touched her blushed face, anxious not to be noticed. She immediately got on her feet as soon as they both entered the room, and with her throat constricted by the rush of the emotions that had gripped her whole body, she felt like she was making it obvious that she was pretending to be unaffected by the presence of Blerimi there.
 
    "Hello," he greeted her formally, and he approached her to shake her hand. 
 
    Leonora noticed Denada entering the kitchen in front of her with her back to them, and she turned to him with a yearning look slowly fading from his gaze with the same feeling as soon as Blerimi realised that Denada wasn't looking at them.
 
    If only he had accepted Denada's invitation three years ago and gotten to know Leonora, he thought hopelessly, unable to go back to the past to change things. He wouldn't be so imprisoned with her in those moments, and he could tell her out loud that he loved her, that he was burning for her, and there wasn't a second that passed, and he didn't imagine that they belonged to each other. The same desire and agony that he read in her fragile brown eyes from the despair of the unjust present they were living in tortured him more.
 
    "Hi," Leonora risked, arching her lips slightly and holding his hand for a few seconds before they were separated and forced to sit apart from each other.
 
    Denada brought the prepared fruit juice for Blerimi and sat down to his left.
 
    "Thank you," he reached out to take the glass off the table.
 
    "I prepared it myself," Denada said excitedly, and he looked at her in shock before headlong removing his hand, as if the drink were poisonous. 
 
    "Nothing personal," he said, and he laughed at her face being affected by that criticism.
 
    "Blerim," Denada complained, and she lightly hit his arm. "You know what? You're jealous because I have creativity for such things."
 
    "I can't stand your talent," he replied ironically, and Leonora laughed with them too.
 
    Denada glanced at her lit phone screen on the table and read the caller's name.
 
    "Ah, sorry. I have to answer this."
 
    Both of them looked down, not to be noticed by her that they were happy for having to stay alone in an environment, although not in the conditions they wanted, but it was enough to call it an unforgettable night, thanks to the moments they were living.
 
    Denada took the phone and went to the bedroom. She closed the door slowly behind her and answered the call.
 
    Blerimi took the opportunity to look at Leonora while she was sitting next to the TV, which was placed in front of him, and it seemed as if her eyes were on the TV and not on him. She had such beautiful, attractive energy that he couldn't look away from her and didn't want to.
 
    Leonora thought about saying something to end the silence between them, but she didn't trust in her power to look at Blerimi without expressing with a smile and blushing of the cheekbones how much she was affected by his presence and his stare at her. 
 
    She looked at the casserole on the gas in the kitchen and got up to check if the soup prepared by Denada was stuck at the end of the casserole.
 
    Blerimi quickly drank the fruit juice to wash the glass and, in the meantime, to stay for a few moments near her.
 
    Leonora was stirring the soup slowly with a wooden spoon when she felt his footsteps approaching her. She involuntarily held her breath in nervousness and felt all her cells on fire, as if her body had been set on flames.
 
    He washed the glass and filled it with water to drink. He prolonged that action as much as possible, while Leonora didn't move from where she was standing and only stirred the soup.
 
    A drop of the hot food broke from the ruptured blister and landed on her exposed hand skin, causing her to promptly flinch away and let out a small groan of burning pain.
 
    Blerimi set the glass down on the counter in alarm and stopped himself in time to reach over and touch her hand to see where it was burned and kiss her delicate skin tenderly.
 
    He turned on the faucet for her in silence, and Leonora reached for the water in the same way, to quench the burn from the soup. Standing only for a few seconds while he drank the water in his glass, she stepped away to put the lid on the casserole and returned to the living room. 
 
    Denada left the room as soon as he placed the washed glass on the counter.
 
    "I'm leaving, Den," said Blerimi, and he noticed Leonora on the left, looking at him. "I have to wake up early tomorrow for work."
 
    "Okay," said Denada. "Thank you for coming."
 
    "Not at all," he replied, and he looked at Leonora as she stood up. "Good night," he greeted her only with words and turned to leave, without getting her answer, with his back to her.
 
    The weight of guilt for the moments spent together and longing for each other began to weigh on Leonora after Blerimi left the house. For so little time, they had been able to live under the illusion of creating some memories together to pay the price of separation and despair that maybe that night had been the last time, when they had had such freedom, to be so close and alone.
 
    He cut off all communication with Margarita since he was on time and Leonora hadn't found out anything about their dates, and such a thing didn't entirely reassure him anyway.
 
    He got broken every time he thought of a version of life where Leonora was very okay with his non-existence, let alone for the feelings about which she didn't even consider anywhere that they had value.
 
    The possibility before his eyes to completely change the present and be with her was crushing his soul with pain. How could they manage to be together without either of them being in danger?
 
    Every time he thought about going to Denada's office, he was afraid that Albioni would come there without announcing first; he would suspect them, and the consequences would fall on Leonora more.
 
    The feeling of wanting to meet her was burning him to the point of pain. He decided to go to Denada's office the next afternoon, just for a few minutes. His cousin worked there, so there was nothing wrong with him being there.
 
    His heart, aware of what would happen, rejoiced ahead of time for the meeting between them, even though he wasn't certain that she had gone to work that day.
 
    A few seconds separated them. She wasn't aware of his sudden arrival, and he guessed how happy she would be. 
 
    He opened the door quietly and was startled when he noticed another girl sitting at Leonora's desk.
 
    His mind, ready to give the appropriate reaction with as much information as it had at its disposal, rapidly went to work to assume that Leonora had left perpetually because Albioni had suspected something and she had been forced to quit that job.
 
    But perhaps the truth was different, and Blerimi had to consider, no matter how unprepared he was to accept it, that sudden turn of events in his life story: that she had chosen Albioni, had decided to give their marriage a chance, and doubted that Blerimi probably had been playing along all that time by pretending to have feelings for her, just to lure her into experiencing a short adventure, and then to get rid of her. She had chosen not to risk it and had cut him out of her life forever. 
 
    Denada's explanation, that Leonora had left of her own free will, convinced him that he had to consider his last doubt and do the same; give up, since they hadn't paid with their lives for that unspoken secret they had between them.
 
    If it had been written, it would have happened. Since all those obstacles had come up, there had to be a strong reason why they weren't together at that time, but they were in that kind of situation.
 
    Trying to remove the weight of guilt by throwing it to another force, weighed to Blerimi even more on his chest, and the loss had never seemed so murderous.
 
    He had written that incident himself, when he had chosen to take revenge in the wrong way by using Anila. He should have taken the shortcut, gotten rid of the only culprit, Amarildo, and not messed with his sister at all. What if she too had fallen victim to her brother's wickedness but hadn't told anything out of shame and fear that no one would believe her?
 
    He couldn't remember the last night that he had been in her house from self-loathing, despair from regret, and desire that if things hadn't gone the wrong way, now he wouldn't be feeling condemned, suffering for what he had done, and Leonora too, because of his fault. 
 
    She would never forgive him if she found out about Anila. She would report him to the police and hate him for the rest of her life. The fact that he had repented, that revenge had blinded him, and that was why he had acted so wrongly, wasn't enough for him to be forgiven.
 
    No motive justified his actions. Blerimi was guilty. He was paying the penalty, and that punishment was going to continue.
 
••••
    Leonora closed the bedroom door and sat down on the floor, her back leaning against the left side of the bed.
 
    Blerimi would probably have gone to the office to meet her, and if she had been at work, she would have seen him. She was burning like a lighted match, needing to fall on wood before she was completely extinguished.
 
    Albioni had told her that she should no longer go to that job because he had found out from his brother, Agustini, who worked in the police, that Denada was suspected of money laundering, and, in order not to put the blame on Leonora and to escape herself, she had to quit and leave as soon as possible.
 
    Leonora had understood that her husband had lied to her, but the fear that if she opposed and insisted on continuing to work at the office, he would suspect Blerimi, he would kill him, and who knew what other crime he would commit, had forced her to remain silent and submit to Albioni's command.
 
    She didn't want Blerimi to get into trouble because of her. The guess that, if they had chosen each other over Albioni, it could have happened in the future that Blerimi would have regretted and hated her because of why things had come to that point, weakened her further, and made her a slave to the decision that it would be better to give up on them forever.
 
    Tears burned her eyes, and her lips twisted in sobs. She couldn't believe she was living in that kind of reality when she could be living in a totally different present without any pain. 
 
    Graniti had most of the blame. He had never played the role of the older brother to her as he should have, and that was why she was suffering so much. She hated him with all the power she had to feel. She had forgotten how many times she had imagined her life without his existence and the false happiness she had experienced for a few moments in such a version.
 
    She had opposed her family's decision not to marry Albioni until she felt stabs in her chest, and in the end, she had been forced to accept, manipulated by the thought that maybe she would love him in the future and escape from Graniti, their father, Ardiani, and her stepmother, Zana. That was the only way she could live a peaceful life, build her family, and slowly recover.
 
    Such a thing hadn't happened, no matter how hard she tried. The wounds had only deepened and would have continued that process in agony had she not met Blerimi and known the kind of painless love he expressed. 
 
    Because of her brother, she was suffering the impossibility of being with the man he loved. If he had supported her to live her life the way she wanted, she probably would have met Blerimi sooner and wouldn't have suffered so much until those moments. Graniti had justified his actions in the past towards her with the argument that if she didn't do as he told her to, Leonora would become like her biological mother, Teuta; she would sleep with married men and disgrace her family.
 
    Now, with her knees drawn to her chest, crying with her hair loose in her face, and feeling hopelessly guilty for loving Blerimi while she was married to someone else, she was thinking that she had become a much worse person than her brother had predicted for her, and maybe she had deserved that terrible life in Puka to protect her from following the wrong path, where she was. 
 
    "Nora!"
 
    Albioni's entrance into their room instantly made her stop crying, and she wiped away her tears.
 
    "Nora, why are you crying?" He approached her, as if alarmed.
 
    "I recalled the past," she replied bitterly, and Albioni was stepped back by the grinding look of her reddened eyes from crying.
 
    He understood that she had meant the past between them, that he had known very well how much she had been suffering, and yet he hadn't supported her but rather added to her anguishes.
 
    "Come and wash your face," he stretched out his hands, trying to be nice to her.
 
    "I want to stay alone." Leonora stood up and hurried to lock herself in the bathroom, and Albioni sighed deeply in frustration without walking away from the bedroom.
 
    She had met someone. There was no other explanation for her behaviour.
 
    What did he have to do? If their society found out that his wife had been cheating on him all that time, they would say that it was his fault because he had given her too much freedom.
 
    He could no longer sit idly by. He was going to solve this problem by himself and protect his honour.
 
    He was going to kill Leonora when she was asleep.