This story has been wandering in my mind for weeks, including some of the key scenes in detail. I'm fascinated with Enrico (and fell in love with him when I saw him as a child in OVA 6 and 8) and always wanted to do more backstory. There are a lot of takes on that, but they mostly concern his life in the orphanage. I wanted to do something earlier. There's nothing known about his family, except that he was an illegitimate child and I think that's a pity.
In my eyes, he looks around 8 in the flashback, so I'm running with that. Speaking of which, am I the only one who thinks he looks incredibly creepy as a kid? Especially in the manga. But he's still one of the most interesting characters, if that is possible in Hellsing.
I will cease my babbling for now. Have fun!
Devil's child
Enrico glared at the white sheet on his desk, then at the pencil he was holding way too tight. He forced himself to relax his hand a bit. The wood creaked. This shouldn't scare him. Damn it, he wasn't scared! Just angry. No, not even that. Just annoyed. This was stupid. After twenty-two years he should be over the past for good. Well, except he saw it every time he turned his back to the mirror and made the effort to look at it. A little reminder of where he came from.
Outside, the noises of Rome had dimmed to the usual nightly level. It was late. He would be dead tomorrow, but that was nothing new. He wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. Or, more exact, he didn't want to. That would bring back things he liked buried. That had been buried. He sat the pencil down and began to write.
I'm not sure why I'm writing this down at all. Maybe to get rid of it, after such a long time. And because Lisa told me to. Now that my mother... no, that Chiara dei Fiori appeared again, surely drawn in by my success, maybe it's time I finally close this file, once and for all. The file Enrico Maxwell, the devil's child, bastard son of a Vatican cardinal and his cousin.
There, that was not so bad. At least he had written something. It was a stupid introduction, sure, but he didn't intend to show this to anyone and it was a lot better than "My name is Enrico Maxwell and I had a really crappy childhood." That sounded like an autobiography. He would write one someday, but now he was way too young for that. It would show bad taste. And when he did, Chiara would not get a major part in it. Once he was done, he would take the pages, rip them into tiny pieces, and burn them. And then this was over forever. He snorted and tapped the table with the back of the pencil. What was it supposed to help to write down what happened? Everyone who was important knew anyway. It had been more than twenty years. And despite the scar he would forever bear... Why had the nightmares come back, after such a long time?
That bitch!, he thought. His hand clenched around the pencil again. It quivered, but the wood was tough and didn't break yet. Fine then, he would go through his memories one last time, like Anderson had advised him, like Renaldo had advised him and Lisa and... As if they had an idea. He should have never told them. But the lack of sleep made him careless. That was dangerous for an Iscariot. He looked at the paper in disgust, but he knew where he had to start. So he did. The sooner he got this done, the better. He had already wasted enough time.
My earliest clear memory is actually a good one. At least it starts off sort of good. I must have been around four or five, and my father took me and my mother for a ride in his car. A dark red cabriolet, and a fast one. My mother didn't own a car and for me it was like flying on a magic carpet. On that day, I sat in her lap and she hugged me. You see, my mother was never acting particularly tender towards me, but on that day, she tried her best. Father said something and she laughed. I thought she was very pretty. She looked a bit like me, or rather I look like her. She was a typical Italian with dark hair and tanned skin, but she had really bright green eyes. I inherited those, along with the tan. The blond hair I got from my father. Genetically a really slim chance, right? By now my hair got a bit darker, but when I was a child, it was platinum blond, almost silver. Might be one of the reasons I was called a devil's child even before it became known I was a bastard.
I don't remember a lot about my father. I know what he looked like from photos, but my own memories are blurry. He was more than twice my mother's age and for a child like me that was incredibly old. He was tall, meaning he looked gigantic. The day he took us for a ride was the last I saw him. He used the photos for a bit of publicity. I looked it up. Nobody knew I was his son, not just a random child receiving his 'charity'. The public doesn't know to this day.
My father was Cardinal Pietro Gioffredo Maxwell. When he met my biological mother, he was 42 and still a bishop. Chiara was 17. Sure, it must have been difficult being pregnant when you didn't even finish school. And being a single mum in conservative times was even harder. Somehow, I think, she managed to hide it from everyone – friends, parents, whatever. She went to a convent for half a year, again with the help of my father. After that, she came home with me, claimed she had a divine vision and agreed to raise me as her own. That's what it says in the paper. We Maxwells seem to have a thing with publicity. I don't know how everyone reacted to that, but the fact that she ended up mostly alone except for my father's financial help speaks volumes, right? Even in a pious family you can only go so far. Aside of that it became clear quickly we had to be related.
So the first years were rough, but acceptable, I guess. They continued their relationship. I can't and don't want to guess the nature, but I suppose from Chiara's side it was mostly about the money. She never finished school, so she needed it. I remember what she told me. Back then I didn't understand it, of course, so she could feel perfectly fine rambling about it to me. And him? What do I know what happens in the brain of a middle-aged bishop having a child with his teenage lover? He broke his vow and I suppose it was not for the first time. Only this time he hadn't paid attention once and that had highly inconvenienced him.
(I'm not claiming I'm better. Seems to run in the family. But at least I have different reasons than pure lust. I'm not excusing myself. I'm merely stating I know who I broke my vow for and I don't regret it.
...Okay, sometimes I do. But then I'm with her and I forget about that. Also, just for the record, I'm only five years older. And we're really careful. Dio mio, why am I writing this in the first place? Oh well, I'm going to burn it anyway, so I can write whatever I choose to. Isn't that the point of the whole thing?)
Where was I? Right, that day in the cabriolet.
Pietro took us out for a ride and brought us to a resting place off the highway with a lovely view. He ruffled my hair and told me I should go and catch a few insects or something. (That's a quote. I'm not sure if he ever played outside as a child, but insects were not my biggest interest.) So I ran around a bit and looked busy. But I also listened to them. Talk about me being a scheming little bastard, to quote an old, now "unfortunately" deceased colleague. I suppose there's some truth in it after all, except for the obvious. (God, if I'm starting to make stupid jokes now I can just go and try to catch some sleep after all.)
So my father dumped her. Sure, I didn't really understand the concept at that time, I remind you, I was not older than five at the most, but I understood that he didn't want to see us anymore.
Chiara got really upset and screamed at him until the other people, those resting from a hiking trip or in their cars like us, had decided to get away and leave us alone. Fast. It was a lot of "How can you?" and "Why didn't you tell me" and nasty insults. Pietro stayed astoundingly calm. He only slapped her when she got hysterical. She calmed down a bit when he told her she would still get her money, as long as she kept their secret. He offered to get her a well-paid job. And then they looked at me and I was not really convincingly pretending to be busy looking at the view. They might as well have pondered on killing or getting rid of me in another way. I don't know. Just leaving me at the roadside, maybe. You know how they say children know more than they understand? It's true. Otherwise I can't explain how I knew this. And it was enough to scare me.
Pietro drove us home. Chiara hadn't said a word the whole drive and didn't until we went inside. Then she threw down her bag and started to cry. She screamed incoherently for a while, stomping around, ripping photos apart, the whole package. I sat on the couch the whole time and listened in silence. I wasn't stupid. She got rough when she was angry and I didn't want to risk that.
So after a while she calmed down a bit. And I made my first mistake. I asked her if I should make her a tea. And yes, I could already do that at the age of five. Sometimes she forgot all about me and I had no other choice than to learn the most basic things.
She was standing at the window smoking and seemed to realize I was there for the first time. I find it hard to describe what her gaze looked like. Disgusted, maybe. Something close to hate. I'm not sure. I only know I was scared.
"Devil's child," she said after a while. That was something I had been called a few times and she had explained what it meant. A bastard like me wasn't even supposed to live. I was a mistake, a silly twist of fate, worth nothing than being spat upon. The devil had created me to ruin her life. (Again, I'm quoting. You don't forget words like that easily, even when you're a small child.)
She smiled and that scared me even more because it was not a real smile. "Your mommy has been bad," she said with that nasty smile. She stubbed out the cigarette and closed the window. "Not only had she a relationship with a holy man, no, she had a relationship with her freaking cousin. And then we have you." She sat down on the couch. I made my second mistake. I slid away, just few centimetres until the armrest was in my way, because I was scared. She grabbed my arm so tight I think I could hear my bones crack. She pulled me to her. I vividly remember the smell of her cigarettes. I didn't scream. I didn't make any sound. I knew she didn't like that.
"A goddamn incest child," she said and laughed. It was a mixture of a laugh and a sob and an angry scream, I think. Either way, she tugged at my clothes, and examined me like I was a lab rat she saw for the first time. "Aren't kids like you supposed to be ugly, or silly? I could just drown you. Oops, sorry, my son was mentally challenged, it was an accident." She laughed again and pinched me. I yelped a bit and she glared at me. "Shut up. You're too stupid to understand it anyway, so just shut. Your. Mouth."
I hadn't understood most of it, she was right about that. I didn't understand why she was angry or what was wrong about her relationship. He was a priest, a bishop with a career to tend to. As I said, I was highly inconvenient. It meant he couldn't just pay her off. That they were cousins added insult to injury, so to say. And, to get something down I really never dared to speak aloud so far, from a biological point of view, I'm a lucky bastard. (Weird in how many ways you can use that word.) I'm clever, I'm good-looking, what more could I ask for? Could have been very different.
Pietro was Chiara's grand-cousin or something, I think. I've never really understood more than the basics of the family who's who. He was the cousin of Chiara's mother. The family branches were estranged, which explains why they didn't know each other. And when I'm already at it, he was the nephew of Giacomo Maxwell, the archbishop who led my section during the Second World War and who helped Millennium escape. Isn't that great? (Warning: Heavy sarcasm was activated. Use at own risk.)
God, I'm tired. I want this to be done for, but I'm not even at the beginning of the Really Bad Times. Did I really just capitalize that?
So, I made my third mistake. I asked: "Will Papà come to visit us again?" I hadn't even the time to flinch. She slapped me. Hard. I bit my lip (couldn't talk for two days), but I only noticed it later. I think I hit my head or something and that was that.
Just for the record, she apologized. I woke up the next day, after more than fifteen hours, with a brimming headache, the taste of copper in my mouth and unsure what year it was. Chiara had given me two ice packs, one for my head and one for my lip. Didn't help a lot, but she got me chocolate ice cream and I watched a movie with her. I think it might have been The Sword in the Stone. It was good enough to make me forget the pain for a while. I think I scared her, passing out like that. I was dizzy for days after, probably from a concussion. We didn't go to the hospital though and it got better soon. Talk about luck. I could have been dead and that would have been serious trouble for her.
As I got older, things like that became more frequent. She was careful I didn't hit my head again or got any serious injuries that would need to be treated, but otherwise... I'm not saying I was that particularly great either. I was afraid and obeyed every command as well as I could, but that was about it. I knew I shouldn't get close to her after three or four pm, when she had downed the first bottle of what looked like water, but wasn't. It got gradually worse, but that doesn't mean she needed to drink to be a nasty bitch. Begging only made her more angry and I stopped with that soon. It was easier and less painful to just bear it out.
Reasons? Who needs reasons? But well, let's try to list a few things. I didn't obey quick enough, various times. I said something at the wrong moment, often enough, less frequent when I stopped talking to her altogether unless I really had to. Once I spilled a glass of milk. She came in while I was cleaning up and tripped over me because she was shit-faced drunk again. Oh and then I got a really bad stomach flu. I could barely walk. She gave me warm water with mustard. You know what that does? Exactly. I made it to the bathroom in time, but that didn't matter for her. The act itself was a violation of her orders. I was allowed to sleep afterwards, but I had to sleep on my belly, although that is not very helpful when you're sick. The list goes on and on, until I was around seven. Might have been shortly before my seventh birthday. I never celebrated them, so I'm not sure. Was too much work for her, I suppose, especially since it's the 25th of December.
Funny, if you think about it. I was a Christmas Child. Not really the present Chiara wanted, I can imagine. And she didn't really celebrate Christmas either. I only knew I'd be a year older when we went to a really festive mass and all that. It might be a surprise, but Chiara wasn't religious. I didn't grow up in a pious household. That was all my own interest. Bible class in school did the trick. My teacher noticed my interest. He gave me a bible and I should read a different chapter every week. I did and memorized all of it. My teacher was Marco Renaldo, by the way. He was helping out in the school at that time. He was surely not the first person to notice how strange I behaved, how I sat in a weird way sometimes and definitely not the first to notice all the bruises I couldn't cover up, especially in summer. But he was the first one who cared. I looked in the files, he was the one to pose a request to the... what's the word? In English it's youth welfare office. At least google tells me so.
Anyway, he wanted to help me. But it's not that easy. Chiara got wind of it and expected a visit any time. It was astounding. A little clap here and there – but that was it. My bruises and scratches disappeared. She even let me grow my hair a little bit. I got ice cream and a new notebook for my studies. The visit came. I didn't speak up. I know that was stupid, but as much as I hated living with her, I didn't want to get her into trouble. And so far, no adult had helped me a great deal if I ever complained. I was a kid. Nobody took a child seriously.
And you know what's the funny part? I still loved her, the way kids do, no matter how often she hurt me. I wanted to please her at any cost. All I wanted was a "Ben fatto, Enrico". That's not so much, right? I remember feeling like I was going to drift off the ground in happiness when she thanked me once for bringing her a glass of water for her hangover.
So, visit came and went, nothing happened.
Now I took way too far ahead. That was later. I got into school when I was (still) five and things got worse. At first I had thought school would be great. I would learn a lot and much more important, I was away from Chiara half the day, if not longer. Didn't really work out like that. I was an outsider from the beginning. I'm pretty sure that's because the parents talked and the kids listened, in particular the older ones. About my mother. As I said, those were more conservative times, even the mid-nineties. And my silver-blond hair made me stand out even more. My mo- Chiara always took care I had it really short, because - she said - if she wanted a girl she would tell me.
So, people talked. I got called a lot of names, but I mostly ignored them. The other kids were just so... dull. I was half a year to almost a year younger than them, but they all appeared so slow and stupid to me. I overtook them after a few weeks. My teacher, Signorina Pavetta, was basically the first person who ever praised me. You can't imagine how happy I was. When I went home I was too occupied with that to realize the mood m-
Damn it. She's not my mother.
- the mood Chiara was in. She was half-drunk and trying to clean up. I didn't realize it quickly enough and told her about how much I'd been praised. Got me a few bad hits with the tube of the vacuum cleaner. My knee hurt for a week and I scratched my arm when I tripped. I told Signorina Pavetta I'd fallen down the stairs. Chiara told me so. She always told me what to say. Sometimes I had to adjust the story a bit. She wasn't really good at keeping track of what she had already used as a cover story or what simply sounded stupid to any sober person.
It wasn't always like that. I knew when to tell her things and when I better stayed quiet, and once I got a chocolate ice cream after I'd scored full points on a test.
The winter came and it got easier to cover up all the bruises. Then my mother ran into the parents of an older child I knew – the school bully Romeo, like Romeo and Giuliette, just less romantic. And the parents talked about her. She was not drunk, but didn't look really presentable either and made the mistake of slapping me in front of everyone. Not very hard, more a warning little clap, but that was enough for Romeo to pick up my trail. He didn't leave me alone. However he got that out, he spread around that I was a bastard child. He liked to remind everyone I shouldn't live, laughed at everything I did and called Chiara a puttana. Well, he was certainly right about that last bit, but back then it made me angry. And he told everybody I got beat by girls. That made me the main target for anyone in a bad mood. The adults only intercepted when it was looking like we would actually break into a brawl. I was never a fighter and preferred to run. So the adults never really learned of this. I was too embarrassed to ask for help anyway. That was basically how it went the whole winter, until it was spring again.
I did have a friend, or what I perceived as a friend at that time. He was one of those clever kids that always get bullied, just like me. His name was Massimo. One day, I asked Chiara if I could bring him home. She said yes and cleaned the whole apartment. She didn't drink. I even got new jeans. But on our way home we ran into Romeo. I tried to ignore him. By then I didn't care anymore what he called me or Chiara. I had stopped crying in secrecy (at school, I have to add. If I'd cried at home, Chiara would have beaten the shit out of me. She hated noise.) He didn't deserve that much attention. But he pushed me and I fell. I scraped my knee. This was in itself not so bad. It didn't even hurt a lot. Romeo seemed disappointed I didn't scream or started to cry. I just got up again and told Massimo we would go. Romeo grabbed his arm and then made the mistake of trying to grab the collar of my shirt. I punched him in the face. Hard.
I don't think he expected anything from me, the least of which was a counter attack. But I punched him, like I had seen it on TV when Chiara had fallen asleep late at night. My hand cracked and I couldn't move it for three days, but hell, it was satisfying. His nose bled when he fell down. He looked up at me with huge dark eyes (I remember that very well for some reason), already staring to cry, and then he scrambled up and ran back to school, yelling I would regret that. And I did.
Massimo and I stayed out a few more hours. I didn't want to go home, for a good reason. I was thinking about buying the same trousers again so she wouldn't notice, but I didn't have any money. Romeo had been taking most of it since school began, the rest I had managed to hide. But to get it, I had to get past him and that was out of the question. He would have assembled his gang by now.
So Massimo said goodbye and had to go home. It was getting dark. Not that Chiara cared particularly about the time I came home, but I was getting hungry. If she was asleep, maybe I could make myself a sandwich or something. She liked to cook pudding, too, maybe some of it wasn't spoiled yet. I'd have to find out.
Chiara was not asleep. She was sitting at the kitchen table, the phone in her hand. And she looked angry. I was close to running out again. I had been thinking about running away for a while and was gathering all the money I got. Maybe I could get away and find somebody nicer. I was a tall boy, I was clever, I learned quickly. Fifty years ago that wouldn't have been a problem. Nobody cared about brats like me anyway.
Then I saw the little box with all the small coins I had collected on the table and my heart made a nosedive through the floor. So much for that. Chiara stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. Her eyes found the torn jeans and she looked even more angry. "I should have known," she said. She was speaking very quietly and that was the worst. She only spoke like that when I was in serious trouble. It had happened once, and I didn't want to experience that again. I stood there and the door fell shut behind me. I didn't dare to move. I don't think I could have.
"I should have known you would be a failure." She stopped in front of me and I realized she was sober, maybe the first evening in weeks. That was bad. When she was drunk, she didn't hit so hard. Sometimes she missed me and hit something else without noticing. I had learned to use that.
At first she didn't make a move. "What happened?", she asked and pointed at my trousers.
"Romeo pushed me," I said truthfully. She nodded, as if she already knew that.
"The same Romeo you beat up this afternoon?"
I hesitated. What should I say about that? "He pushed me first." I didn't want it to sound defiant, but it didn't really work. But instead of slapping me, she only nodded again. Half of me was almost relieved. The other half dreaded something awful. Turned out the distrustful part of me was right.
"So, he pushed you first? And you ripped your trousers. And then you beat him?"
"I punched him in the face. Then he ran away. I- I just wanted him to leave me alone. He always picks on me." Chiara looked at me and her eyes were strangely calm. I remember that, because I felt really cold at that sight. My knees were actually trembling a bit. I don't think I had been that afraid of her in months. Sometimes I look in the mirror and see those eyes on myself. They're very green, almost emerald-coloured. I don't actually hate it, they suit me well. But I can't help to be reminded of her and that is something I hate.
"Signorina Pavetta said he has bruises all over him. They want me to come to the school."
"That wasn't me! He's the one who always beats me-" I shut up when she raised her hand. Not that the bruises I got from him were obvious. They disappeared under all the rest.
"Go to your room and wait for me there," she said. I hastily took off my shoes and coat and went there. I had my own little room, not much more than a big closet, really, but it was mine. Clothes, the few things I had for school and all the trinkets I had collected over time. Most of it was strewn about. She had searched my room pretty thoroughly when she dug up my box of money.
I sat on the bed, drew my knees to my chest and got my little notebook from bible class. The first part was homework, but in the back, I had drawn pictures I remembered from walking past the science rooms. There were posters from the older classes, electrical circuits and all that. Father Renaldo had explained them to me and sometimes I drew one myself and asked him if it was right. I was always interested in that, almost as much as in the bible. But I had no real possibilities to learn about it when I was that age. Obvious reasons. I was working on a big and complicated circuit at that time and couldn't wait to show it to Father Renaldo when it was done.
Anyway, I was glad to escape into concentration for a while. I didn't hear Chiara until she took the notebook from my hands. She closed it, read the cover (Studio Della Bibbia, Enrico Maxwell, Classe 2c, Padre Renaldo) and ripped it in half. It might sound silly, but it hurt more than if she had hit me. I had worked so much on that. But I didn't say anything, although I had tears in my eyes. Chiara saw that. Did I mention she despised it when I cried?
She didn't even touch me. "Stand up." I did, though my legs were shaking more than a little bit by now. "Take off your shirt." I did. I opened the buttons and wanted to put it on the chair, but Chiara just took it from me and threw it on a heap. "Turn around." I did so. I don't think I knew what was coming. Maybe I didn't want to know.
"Lie down. And if you make a sound, you will regret it." All the time her voice was really calm. I heard a sliding sound, almost like a zipper, I couldn't really nail down, but of course I obeyed. What else was there to do?
I wrote that, after the visit from some official-looking guy, nothing changed. That's not true. Maybe some silly part of me had thought it would get better after she was so nice for a few weeks. The hope dies last or what does the proverb say? It didn't get better. It got a lot worse.
Damn. I can't believe I'm crying over this bullshit. I'm a grown man, not a whiny kid, for God's sake! I'm the leader of Iscariot. I should have thrown her into a dungeon when I had the chance. Goddamn bitch.
...
What does it matter after so many years? Lack of sleep is making me touchy, that's all. I'll get done with this now.
So, I laid down on the bed, my legs more or less still in the air. I was used to pain, that much should be clear. And I expected a hit. But it was a lot worse than I thought. Chiara used a thick leather belt, I'm pretty sure belonged to my father once. Expensive, thick, real leather. It whistled when it cut the air. That's no stereotype. And the bang when it hit me isn't either. I screamed. The pain was so sudden and sharp I couldn't help it. That moment I knew I had gotten myself in even more trouble.
"I told you to stay quiet," she said in that scary calm voice. I think she had taken pills or something. Otherwise I can't explain it. She hit again, and again. I think around fifteen times. I didn't count. I was way too occupied trying not to scream again. I might have passed out for a few seconds, I don't know. I'm not even sure how long it took. Couldn't have been more than a few minutes at the most. I just buried my face in my arms and clenched my teeth as hard as I could. It worked long enough she finally stopped.
"You can stand up now." I had trouble doing so. I could barely move at all without wanting to scream. I got a look at myself in the mirror. The usual bruises and the imprint of her hand on my arm didn't even compare to this. The belt was too broad to cut me, so my back didn't bleed or anything, but it was riddled with red stripes already turning purple. Imagine lava pouring over your back and drying there, but without cooling off. That was about how it felt.
Chiara looked at me and rolled up the belt. I was crying, more out of pain than anything else, without making a sound. "Now you have a reason to cry. Don't come out before school." And with that, she left me and closed the door. She took the torn notebook with her. I laid on my bed and cried. I was lonely, and angry, and hurting and wished her to hell, literally. When I was done, I read in my bible as well as I could without moving too much.
I didn't go to school the next day. After lying still for so long I couldn't move without screaming in pain, no matter how much I tried to contain myself. That was of course no excuse for Chiara, but the belt had brushed my neck and that bruise was impossible to cover up in this warm weather. So I stayed home for a few days. Nobody asked any questions, at least none that I heard. I was missing a lot in school anyway. I even had a permanent excuse for physical education class so nobody would see me undressed.
I mean, it was a perfect system, but with one flaw. She could explain a few bruises and scratches. Boys just were like that (except I was not). But all of that was impossible to conceal when I had my clothes off. So, no PE for me. I didn't really care. It hurt too much to move a lot most of the time.
Chiara used the belt occasionally, not as often as she could have, but she didn't hesitate either. It was for the bigger misadventures I got into. (Whatever she understood that to be.) Sure, when I got into a brawl with Romeo, this time for real, she took care of that. I had to apologize to him, he almost squished my hand, and I missed out on three days of school and the weekend. Stuff like that. What never changed was the ritual. I turned around, had to take off my shirt and lie on the bed. That was probably for the best. I learned not to scream pretty fast and the bed sheet helped me with that. Aside of that most of the time she just let me lie there and that was a blessing.
You know what's interesting? I never got any scars. All the beatings, bruises, scratches, they all disappeared. Sure, I had no time to admire that because I got new ones soon, but my skin seems to heal pretty well. And the belt, terrifying as it was, was the worst she could think up. Although she was a smoker and had her cigarettes at hand any time, I never got more of that than the smoke. Well, that's not true. She burned me once. She was drunk and let the cigarette fall. It hit my arm and she held it there for a moment. It hurt, like you might expect, but I didn't cry or anything and after a moment she went back to ignoring me. Maybe it was a test. Maybe she just didn't remember the next day. I only know that was the only time it happened.
Aside of that I only got to hear I was such a disappointment, I should never have lived, it was all so much work with a child, she could be rich, bla bla bla. Nothing new for sure. I'm not sure how she paid the rent and all. Sometimes she worked, but she stayed nowhere for long. Without the financial support of my father we wouldn't have made it. Not that most of that didn't go into whatever she needed to stand up in the morning and go through the day.
In the end, it got really hard for me to determine whether or not I could talk to her without being punished. Her moods changed so sudden it got next to impossible to guess a safe time. Sometimes she would break down crying and hug me, promising everything would be alright. When it happened the first time, that scared me more than when she was screaming at me what a useless brat I was. I hugged her back after a while, because (although she gripped me pretty tight and that hurt) it felt also kind of good. She was actually showing some kind of affection after all. I almost thought she didn't hate me. (You know how silly kids can be, right?) She twisted my arm so hard she sprained it. I had to go to the hospital. Luckily, it was the left one and I could still write.
That was how the first half of... I'm pretty sure it was 1995. Ah, no, 1996. I turned seven in December 1995. It's a bit confusing when your birthday is at the end of the year. Anyway, that was how the time passed. We got a new teacher at school after Father Renaldo had to go somewhere for a while. That was how I met Anderson. He gave me the same support Marco had and was even more worried about my home life. But also his hands were bound.
Oh, and did I already tell about my "friend" Massimo? He refused to talk to me after that day Chiara used the belt for the first time. He ignored me and sent me away when I tried to talk to him. A few weeks later, he left the school. I think he went to a boarding school or something. I never saw him again and ended up alone once more.
Well, what does "alone" mean? We hadn't been really close or anything. The difference was that I was sitting in the library reading my bible on my own instead of discussing things like the science books we found.
I'm too tired to bore myself with a detailed list of every beating I got from that day. I'm not sure if I could, and even if, the list would take the rest of the night. Let's get on with the important things. Chiara got worse, until she was a vegetable in front of the TV most of the time. That suited me perfectly well. I concentrated on my homework, stayed in school most of the time and occasionally cleaned up a bit without making too much noise.
It was on such a day I decided I wouldn't take this anymore. That sounds a lot more heroic than it was. It was moronic. I was a seven-year-old boy who weighed forty pounds at the most and although she was not particularly tall, unlike my father, she was heavier and stronger than me. I never had a chance. Then again, it never came to the great stand I wanted to make. That was three weeks before she brought me to Ferdinant Luke's.
Why so late? Well, because she didn't want anyone to see what she had done, of course. It was getting dark and I sat on my bed, writing in my notebook. It was a sort of homework-diary-sketchbook-thing, nothing of that and all of that. Alexander had asked a friend to teach me the basics of a computer. They were getting more mainstream at that time, although many still thought the internet was just a hype that would disappear soon enough. He thought it was a good way to occupy me and I was glad to be away from home.
So I was making my very first attempts at "programming" something. Remember how quiet Chiara was when she came in the first time? Well, this time she wasn't. She stomped in like an angry rhinoceros. And she had the belt in her hand. I winced, but then I remembered what I had decided and straightened up a bit. Chiara wanted to rip the notebook from my fingers – a notebook I had bought from my own hard-earned money. I didn't let go and took it back, shoving it under the pillow I more or less sat on.
Then everything was full of colorful stars and excruciating pain. I fell off the bed and to my knees. I don't think I screamed, I was way too stunned for that. The left side of my face was burning and I felt blood running over my fingers. I sat there for what seemed like an eternity, trying to understand what had happened. A slap was one thing, but she had always spared my face from anything too visible, for her own sake. And above all, it hurt.Red was falling in drops on my hands. I was frozen, just able to stare at it.
To this day, I have no idea what made her so angry. I hadn't seen her since the evening before. Maybe it was simply my existence in general. Fact is, that she was so drunk she didn't notice she was holding the belt at the wrong end. Tell you what, getting a whipping with a leather belt is bad, really bad. But the steel buckle is even worse. And much more dangerous. I was incredibly lucky again. Whatever you can call luck when your mother hates you and doesn't only stick to words to convey that.
Chiara grabbed me by the shirt collar and dragged me on the bed again. She needed a few attempts to do so, but I was too confused and in pain to try an escape. The buttons were poorly fixed and broke. This time, I had a very good idea what was going to happen next. I'd like to say I tried to make a stand, but damn, I was seven years old and terrified. I still remember the red that began to soak the gray bed sheet. Drop by drop, spreading on the less than clean linen. I'll never forget that. The realization that it was mine, that she had badly injured me.
She struck. At first I only heard the bang and a hit. I was completely numb with fear. That didn't hold for long. I felt blood run into my jeans and then the pain began. This time I screamed so loud I was hoarse for days after. Let's stick with the molten lava analogy. The belt was the lava that was on the surface, that had already cooled down a bit. This was more like the molten metals from the earth's core. It's a miracle I didn't pass out. Not a good one.
I thought: She's going to kill me. And I thought: Then I'll be in heaven and she'll burn in hell. That didn't provide the comfort you might think it would have. But it made me angry. I think that might have been the day I realized she had no right to treat me like that, no matter what the circumstances of my birth were.
Maybe what she had done had startled her. And somehow I managed to gather the strength to use it against her. I slid onto the floor and grabbed my shirt while running out. Running is the wrong word, it was more like a hasty staggering. We were living in an ancient apartment complex and the walls were thin. That might be one of the reasons Chiara had forbidden me to scream. I could hear voices outside. I didn't trust adults in general, but at that point I was too desperate to care. And I thought I heard Father Anderson's voice. He had said he would come over some time to look at my sketches. I hadn't told Chiara, of course.
I have only a vague memory of what happened after that. I think I reached the door and tried to open it. Chiara grabbed me and dragged me back to my room. I had lost the shirt on the way and when she ushered me to my blood-splattered bed I got a look of myself in the mirror. The belt had missed my eye by millimeters, but the pin of the buckle had left a long gash. Blood was running over my face and my cheekbone was already dark purple. Then she had hit me in the small of my back with the buckle, opening the skin from my right side under the ribs in a diagonal line to the left, just over my buttocks. I was a child with a vivid imagination, so in my panic I could have just imagined seeing my spine. Chiara shoved me on the bed, where I passed out.
That was the last real beating I got from her. Not because she came to her senses, no, by far not. But more on that later. For now let's just hold on to the fact that I was a backstabbing little cunt (another wonderful quote from my unfortunately deceased colleague) even at age seven.
I was out cold for more than a day. When I woke up, I could barely remember my name. My memories came back fairly quickly, but I didn't bother to tell Chiara. She had given me painkillers with the water, but by far not enough to block out all of it. I don't remember much about the days after, but Chiara seemed to get in ever more trouble to explain my absence in school. I'm pretty sure the gash on my back got infected and I definitely had a fever. On some day after that, my 'memory loss' hadn't gotten 'better' yet, I passed out for quite a while and she panicked. She called a cab, wrapped me into a few bandages, and drove me to a doctor. That alone says a lot. She carried me to the cab and I woke up because she was squeezing the wound and it hurt. A lot. I won't go into that much more, before I get sick thinking about it.
She drove me to the doctor and almost gave the nurse a heart attack. I must have looked pretty bad. The next thing I remember is the pain subsiding. I was lying on a operating table of some sort and the nurse – an older lady with a nice smile – told me it would be alright. My mother would be waiting for me outside, I didn't have to be scared. I'm not sure what I said, but her smile looked pained. The doctor made photos of my injuries and all the bruises and then treated them. He had to sow the cut on my back. I felt a lot better afterwards, that much was sure. I was able to sit up and he gave me ice cream for my rough throat. Then they asked me what had happened. And this time I told them everything, down to the last detail I remembered. I cried, but that was more for show than out of fear or pain. I was quite an evil brat and don't regret a bit.
Further, I made my stand when they brought me back so Chiara could take me home. Yes, after all that happened and I had told them, they sent me home with her. I wasn't scared or anything (though I pretended to be), just furious. As a child I didn't realize it, but they only wanted the best for me. They cared. But if Chiara had known I had told them everything, she might have made a rash decision. I guess they figured in the state I was in now, she wouldn't dare to hurt me even more. They were right.
Around three weeks after the 'incident' I was more or less on my feet again, for the first time in months with only the pale remains of bruises. The gash in my face had closed and would vanish completely over time. Not so the wound on my back. That scar remained. It reminds me of Chiara every time I look in the mirror. As I grew up it stretched and measures about thirty centimeters in length now. Against my relatively dark skin it's almost white. To put it simple: I despise it.
Enrico put down the pencil and yawned. It was the middle of the night by now. He wouldn't get any sleep after all, it seemed. Not that it mattered. That was not much less than he would have gotten anyway. He looked over the pages lying on his desk. More than ten pages fully filled in his curly handwriting. He couldn't believe he was doing this.
He wanted to push a strand of hair out of his eyes and winced as his fingers came back wet. For a short moment, he was caught in the horrific moments of his past. Then he realized it wasn't blood, but tears. Embarrassed, and more than glad nobody could see him, he wiped them away. The gesture was not as angry as it had been.
Enrico took a new page and pushed the other ones aside. But he hesitated. Instead of continuing to write, he took out a small key and opened the bottom drawer of his desk. Inside was a whole lot of miscellaneous things, on top of it all two notebooks. One of it had been ripped in half at some point. He opened the one that was still in one piece and leafed to the very back.
There was one sentence, written in thick red marker, almost like blood. The handwriting was clumsy, the curls and edges of a child that was still practicing.
No one will ever look down on me again.
One word for Chiara: Bitch.
Somewhere (could have been dA, I can't find the pic anymore, help! T_T) I saw a fanart how Enrico was abused by a priest in the orphanage, with bruises all over him. That brought me to write this down after all. It was a bit difficult to write first-person-perspective and to come up with a convincing scenario, since Enrico is the kind of guy who largely suppresses his feelings. So he's basically writing a letter to himself. Whatever floats your boat.
Sorry for all the Renegade references (to my readers: Sorry, but after a double-update I needed a break.) I thought the first part was largely canon. Apparently, I was wrong after checking it again xD Feel free to check out the story if you want to know more. *casually advertising*
Feedback? I'd love to know what you think. Wouldn't be the first time I got a good idea from a review / chat.
Until the next part. Ciao!