Chapter Seven – Emptiness and Percentage
When Mello went down for breakfast, the first thing he noticed after filling his plate in a sleepy haze was that Layla was nowhere to be found.
This in itself was vexing to Mello, as he rather enjoyed talking her ear off about how much he despised Near, and how much better he was than everyone at Wammy's. It wasn't that he particularly felt better than everyone, and sometimes Mello wasn't sure who he was trying to convince, himself or her.
It was nice, having her around, as much as Mello pretended to deny it. He liked people who did what he told them to, and Layla did that well enough. He also liked the fact that Layla listened to him. Even as a small child, Mello wasn't used to people listening, or caring about what he had to say anymore.
It had been different in Russia.
Mello's mother, Anzhela had been the Prima Ballerina for the Bolshoi ballet company. She had been very successful at her craft and had supported her entire family on her ballet skills alone. But the winter had been very harsh, and it seemed that fewer people had money to spare for such trivialities such as ballet. Desperate and starving, Anzhela had turned to a man she did not fully understand.
Kolenka Keehl was a dangerous man, known and well feared all throughout Russia. He had been born into the Keehl mafia family and was fully prepared to die in it. After the death of his father the previous head of the family, Kolenka stepped into his father's shoes and found they fit him perfectly. He was well adapted to mafia life, setting moral and strict code that all beneath him lived by. However, he was known as a generous man, often willing to give others aid provided they were loyal.
So when a young ballerina, twenty years Kolenka's junior had come to his doorstep, begging for assistance to feed her seven brothers and sisters how could he refuse? He had given her enough rubles to last through the winter, and some time after. In return, he had merely asked for a ticket to see her next performance. She agreed wholeheartedly and provided him a ticket for Swan Lake from inside the folds of her threadbare coat pocket.
Not surprisingly, Anzhela was cast as the beautiful Odette, and Kolenka could only watch, captivated as the twenty year old woman had flitted gracefully across the stage on tiny, perfect feet. Afterwards, Kolenka had managed to push his way into her dressing room to present her with a bouquet of white roses. She had seemed genuinely pleased to see him, and had clasped his hand gratefully. The memory of the beautiful, blond dancer stuck in Kolenka's mind for days and he had approached her later asking her to accompany him to dinner.
The dinner itself was quiet, but Anzhela had provided good enough conversation telling Kolenka about her life and family. By the end of the evening, he had become convinced he was falling for a beautiful swan.
They were married exactly a year later. Kolenka did his best to keep his new bride pleased, often buying her expensive clothes and finery. But their arguments were hard, bitter things that woke the housekeepers. Anzhela hated the fact that Kolenka kept secrets from her, disappearing late into the night and not returning until the early hours of the morning. More often than not, Anzhela was left waiting up for him until the candles in the bedroom had melted down to the wick.
But soon after, Anzhela and Kolenka had a son, whom Kolenka had named Mihael, meaning "He who is like God." in the vain hope that his son would not follow in his father's footsteps and perhaps become a better man. Mihael was a beautiful boy, with his mother's flaxen hair and bright blue eyes, a young cygnet, who like his mother would also become a swan.
However, much to Kolenka's disappointment, Mihael proved to have inherited his father's personality as much as he inherited his mother's looks. He often hid things from his parents, first little things like his mother's pearls and later bigger things such as small coins from the housekeeper's belongings.
Kolenka himself had caught the boy in the act, and had proceeded to punish Mihael severely, promptly telling him that "A Keehl does not steal, we may lie, and we may cheat but we do not take from others."
But, Kolenka had taken some slight sympathy on the little boy, noting that he probably felt neglected due to his father's absence from the home and his mother's fanatic focus on her dancing. He began taking his son to church with him every Sunday when Anzhela had ballet practice. The boy showed a remarkably ability to understand the teachings of the bible, often understanding things before Kolenka had to explain them. After a few months Kolenka was relieved to notice that his son did not steal again and had gained a sort of quiet wisdom about him.
It was that quiet wisdom that made Kolenka begin to teach Mihael about their family business, something passed down father to son for generations. He taught the boy much about the mafia as his own father had done for him. He taught the boy how to shoot, and was surprised when Mihael picked up on the skill quickly and soon became far better than his own father, something Kolenka liked to brag about when he allowed Mihael into his mafia meetings.
However, when Mihael had turned seven, things became complicated for the Keehl family. A man from the Americas who arrogantly called himself "Top Cat" had demanded, for a mere sum of a million US dollars that Kolenka begin working with him to smuggle cocaine into Russia. Kolenka had slammed the door in the American's face, before telling him nastily that he would not tarnish his good family name by dabbling in such a disgusting habit.
Later in that evening, when Anzhela had been tucking Mihael into bed there had been a knock on the door. Kolenka had opened it to find a pistol shoved in his face, and Top Cat had proceeded to tell Kolenka that he was about to kill him. Very calmly, Kolenka had merely asked to tell his wife goodbye.
In a surprising display of sympathy Top Cat had nodded. Sure that the American gangster would not understand Russian, Kolenka called out to his wife and calmly explained that she was to hide their son and join him in the drawing room.
Anzhela had suddenly frozen, and there was a quiet scuffle between mother and son as the seven year old attempted to rush into the drawing room to save his father. Frantic, Anzhela had snatched Kolenka's rosary from around her neck and placed it firmly over Mihael's head, kissing both his cheeks and telling him she loved him more than anyone could possibly imagine.
She promptly shoved the boy underneath his bed and told him to cover his ears and pray as hard as he possibly could. Still, even through his praying Mihael could hear the sound of three gunshots as loud as cannons and his mother's anguished, strangled scream.
A few moments later, Anzhela had backed herself into Mihael's room, standing just in front of the bed, in an attempt to provide a barrier between Top Cat and her son. Mihael watched, petrified as Top Cat pushed his mother down on top of the bed and shot her twice. He clamped his small hands over his mouth, while tears streamed unbidden down his cheeks. Without a word Top Cat and his men left, the click of the door seeming loud in the darkness. He stayed under the bed for thirty minutes until he was sure no one would return.
Once he crawled out from under the bed he dashed to the drawing room where his father lay bleeding to death on the floor. Speaking in frantic russian, the little boy crawled over his father's chest sobbing pitifully. Breathing hoarsely, Kolenka had clumsily wiped the child's tears away with his fingers and fingered the rosary around the boy's neck before promptly dying in Mihael's arms.
When the housekeeper had found the boy the next morning, he was still clinging to his father's body. It had taken two men to pry the child away. Because no one could find any living person that was related to the boy he was sent to an orphanage in Moscow.
The caretakers had soon learned that Mihael was full of heated rage. He got into fights often, especially with the boys who teased him about his girlish looks and devout religiousness. One evening a boy had leafed through Mihael's sparse belongings and had found a pinup photograph of Anzhela among them. He proceeded to pass the photo around to all the other boys in the orphanage before asking Mihael if his mother had been a whore.
That evening, Mihael had filled his pillowcase with rocks and had proceeded to crush the boy's jaw and nose with the makeshift sling. Afterwards, the blond boy was sent into solitary confinement among the orphanage and that was when he met Watari.
Watari who introduced himself to Mihael as Wammy had promptly told Mello that he was taking him somewhere much better than this orphanage. It would be another orphanage yes, but no one would adopt them, instead he would learn how to sharpen his unique gifts and Wammy had promised that by doing that, Mihael would some day capture the man who killed his family.
Mihael had raged at the old man, swearing and spitting at him in vicious Russian, but something in the old man's cheerful demeanor made Mihael trust him, and he found himself on a plane, traveling to Winchester, England, where he then met L.
Wammy had given him the name Mello once he realized the boy's unique ability to both experience and understand the motivations of others. Like Anthony de Mello, Wammy believed the boy would influence the world with his deep understanding of the human condition.
However, Mello flat out refused to learn english from the old man, stating that it was an ugly, nasty language used by violent Americans. It was then that he met L.
At first, when L tried to teach him the basics of english through a textbook Mello raged at him as well. Somehow the conversation shifted, and L asked Mello how his father had taught him things. At the word father, Mello had collapsed onto the floor, and sobbed explaining to L that his father was dead. L learned that Mello felt remarkable guilt for not running out and attempting to save his father from Top Cat. And L had felt pity for the sniveling, angry little boy who was so unlike the emotionless albino boy that L had previously been tutoring. In a strange, inexperienced sort of way, L enfolded the little boy in his arms and promised that he would become the boy's father now. Mello had seemed comforted by that revelation and L told him that as his father, he asked that Mello learn english. The two of them began reading books in together and L slowly taught the child english through actively having the boy use the words and phrases in his daily life and rewarding him with chocolate bars when he did well.
Other than L, no one at Wammy's House really paid much attention to his words or thoughts, except for Layla and as Mello sat down impatiently at the table next to Matt he couldn't help but feel a faint twinge of worry as breakfast passed and their was no sign of Layla anywhere.
"Have you seen Layla?" he asked Matt who peered at him briefly before going back to focus on his video game.
"Nope." he said calmly.
Perturbed Mello decided that she must have overslept and took it upon himself to wake her while ranting mentally about how lazy she was.
Once he found the door to her room, Mello knocked on it hastily. "You missed breakfast lazy!" he called.
After a moment of silence her voice came out tiny through the door. "Go away."
Mello blinked, it wasn't like Layla to command him and his first reaction was to attempt to knock the door down, but something in her tone was different and unrecognizable.
"Layla, what's the matter?" he called tentatively. "Are you sick?"
"No, not sick!" she said nastily, "Just want to be alone. Leave me 'lone, Mello."
Mello let out a huff, girls could be so moody sometimes, according to the older boys in Wammy's anyway.
He slowly eased the door open and gasped when he saw her.
She was curled up underneath the window that was directly in front of the door, and was covered in blossoming bruises. Layla had a single black eye and her lip was puffy, it looked as if someone had beat her senseless. She sniffled up at Mello softly and he knelt down beside her. "What happened to you?"
She shook her head and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. "Not wanna talk 'bout it."
Mello ignored the improper english, feeling that it would have been particularly cruel for him to remind her of grammar flaws. However, he couldn't stand how pathetic she looked, trembling like a leaf and snot going down her nose in streams.
Unthinkingly Mello pulled up the edge of his sleeve to wipe at the younger child's face, Layla let out a little gasp and Mello pulled back his hand.
"I'm not going to hit you." he said firmly, then resumed wiping her face.
Afterwards, he sat next to her, looking at her a moment before pulling a chocolate bar out of his pocket.
"Want some?" he asked, offering her half of the bar.
The gesture alone surprised her, Mello was stingy with his chocolate and often didn't like to share. Layla shook her head and Mello waved the candy underneath her nose.
"You'll feel better." he stated. "Eat."
With a trembling hand she took the candy from him and muttered a thanks before nibbling on the chocolate enough to appease Mello. He finished his own candy greedily and then resumed looked at her.
"Who did that to you?" Mello asked, motioning towards the bruises.
Layla shook her head sharply, and Mello frowned unable to keep the anger from creeping into his tone, "Tell me!"
She shook her head again and Mello let out a disgusted sigh. "There's no one here you should be afraid of. Tell me who did this and I'll get 'em."
When it became apparent that she wasn't going to talk, Mello pulled on her hands with his own. "Come on then, lets go to the infirmary then. Someone will be able to make sure nothing on you is broken."
Over the next few days Layla became quieter and Mello found that instead of talking about all of his problems he was inquiring about hers. She hadn't been eating much and was unusually jumpy. The adults in the infirmary hadn't been willing to tell Mello much about her situation but he had overheard the words self inflicted and depression.
It bothered him. Layla was his friend after all, and he didn't think she was unhappy enough at Wammy's to inflict harm on herself, it just didn't seem like her.
Her paintings too had begun to become more sinister, filled with dark monsters instead of her usual cheerful flowerbeds and people. Mello had taken it upon himself to personally threaten every kid who gave her a funny look because of the bruises. He just didn't like it, the odd quietness that had befallen Wammy's because of her appearance, it wasn't like he cared that much about her anyway.
When she disappeared for her lessons with Mei Ling, Mello noticed Near staring after her, a lock of pale white hair being twisted between his forefinger and thumb.
"What are you looking at her for?" Mello snarled.
Unperturbed, Near glanced over at Mello. "Her wounds look self inflicted."
"Well they aren't!" Mello snarled, "So don't look at her."
"Is she unhappy here?" Near asked, his voice still that cold, calculating tone that Mello despised.
"No." he snapped, "She's fine."
"She frightens them, the others...but, is there anyone she's acted strangely around?"
Mello growled, "Then they're idiots. There's not anything in her to be afraid of."
Near gave Mello a half hearted shrug, "Are you so sure of that?"
"Yes!" Mello said vehemently, "One hundred percent." he added, mimicking L.
But as the albino boy shuffled away, Mello began to wonder how much he was sure of.