The world was never quiet
Lie 8 : I'm not an Arsonist
It's been almost three months since the last time I wrote anything. In my defence, I was quite busy hiding from a bunch of hungry lions – yes, lions. But anyway, the present is not the point of this tale. And I realized I left huge grey areas. It's barely articulated, so if I allow myself such vagueness, I'm going to lose everyone.
I talked about Olaf, but never really told you any memory I have with him. Just to be clear, I don't want to do it, but if this bunch of pages is supposed to constitute some sort of defence to the petty accusations I already face (not all of them are petty though), then I have to do it. It's pointless to go back to our meeting – the Daily Punctilious already wrote about it anyway.
No, I think the most interesting thing to do is to go back to the moment when he realized I wasn't exactly on his side. Well, he did also understand that I wasn't on the other side either, but it's a detail. The fact remains that it happened in the very short but paradoxically very busy period of time between the 667 Dark Avenue's fire and the events of the Village of Fowl Devotees – I'll come back to it later, it's too important for it not to be the object of a whole chapter.
Once back on my feet, well, back on my feet, from the disaster that was my father's rescue, I needed to distance myself from Jacques. I hadn't told him anything, he didn't know I set the building on fire. He didn't even suspect it, to be honest. Our relationship didn't suggest I was able of such a thing. Or rather, nothing could make him suspicious. But anyway, I needed fresh air so I left for a few days.
No, fresh air didn't mean cheat on Jacques. I had no intention to. And spoiler alert, it didn't happen. Not really anyway. I was in a motel, nearby in the hinterlands. I had no plan. My mind was still too blurry from what happened with my father. I spent most of my days staring at the sugar bowl in front of me, wondering what was inside. I never went out – I know, logical when you're supposed to need fresh air.
I don't know how he found me. I'm almost certain the motel's owner was one of his allies, but never proved it. Mostly because he died before I seriously considered the question. I was writing a few notes on the famous example I was following according to my late father when I heard knocking. Quickly but without haste, I stuffed the sugar bowl deep in my bag and walked to the door.
No need to keep the suspense alive. It was Olaf. Alone, without his troop. They were waiting outside, but anyway. I stayed still for a while. I didn't have time to put make-up on – the floor had creaked under my feet and I wasn't even trying to be discreet. He knew I was there. He was waiting, more or less patiently, for me to open the door. I could have jumped down the window but he had planned it (thus the presence of his troop outside). I could have pretended to be dead, but he would have kicked the door open. Out of spite and because I wasn't in a normal state, I simply opened.
And I faced him as Cassandre. His pupils narrowed and a nasty smiled distorted his lips. Truly, Olaf wasn't handsome. He could be charming – and he is, though only seldom, but he is not handsome. He would need to take better care of himself for that and it's just not him. Or maybe he's simply not made for personal hygiene, who knows? Anyway. You're not reading this for gross details regarding Count Olaf.
"Olaf," I let out blankly. "What happy occasion brings you here?
- I think you owe me a few explanations, Andrea.
- No, I don't think I do."
He pushed me to enter and closed the door behind him. I let him do it, arms crossed. Well, very honestly, if I had to do it again I would react a bit more. Everything could have happened at this point. But I think I was expecting quite everything. I had killed my father less than a week before, set fire to a building full of people – I never said I had warned anyone, did I? Truth be told, most of them managed to get out. Most. Really, if he'd killed me, it would have made an incredible amount of people's lives easier. Never mind.
"A Volunteer," he spat out, looking around. "Who taught you how to dress up?
- You really think I'm telling you?
- A Snicket, of course." We can say a lot of things about Olaf, but he has a hell of a gut feeling. Or a shameful luck. "You really think your cover wouldn't fall after your exploit in the 667 Dark Avenue?
- By exploit, you mean the part when I stabbed one of your men in the guts or you're doing a metaphor on the fire part?"
Metaphor was too much of a complex term for him, but I saw him frowning. He shut up and stopped walking around to stare at me and narrow his eyes, suspiciously. What was rather funny was that it took him more time than anyone else to accept the idea that I was involved in his plans. He burst out laughing the usual way, the one that sounded more like dog barks more than human laugh, and shook his head.
"A Volunteer does not set a building on fire. Especially inhabited. Especially when her dear dad is inside.
- True." I shrugged. "But you assume that I am a Volunteer. And that my dad opened wide his arms for me.
- You're really trying to make me believe that daddy rejected his beloved daughter?" He rolled his eyes. "He whined for the whole trip that he would find you a way or another.
- He came around when his beloved daughter came covered in blood."
He blinked and glanced at me again. He just realized there were bandages near my jumper's collar – the one that covered my shoulder's wound. I struggled moving it (I still do every so often), and I wasn't hiding it but he hadn't noticed until now. He kept quiet for a while and I could almost see the rusted gears turning in his brains to try to make sense of everything he saw and heard.
No, really, it still stuns me. It didn't take more than two seconds for Jacques to blame me for everything. My father didn't think about it for a second, and immediately knew who Andrea was. Lemony didn't even ask any question, it was obvious from the beginning that I was to blame for half of the last fires that burnt around. But Olaf couldn't believe it.
"You killed him?
- I just said so, indeed.
- A Volunteer…
- Oh shit, Olaf," I groaned, annoyed. "How many times do I need to tell you? I'm not a Volunteer. I wanted to find my father, it so happened that a Volunteer saved me from my house's fire, put me on your track and I decided to extort informations from you. But hey, too bad, dad didn't like the idea that I made friends with your side of Schism and literally sent me packing.
- And you set fire to a building. And to your father.
- Actually, it was my father and then the building."
My attempt to make a joke remained dead letter. He was staring at me, dumbfounded. Well, it only lasted a few seconds, enough time for a sardonic and satisfied smile to replace his surprise. He nodded and laughed again. Strangely enough, I also wanted to laugh.
What, you don't find my summary of the events hilarious? It's ludicrous. Absurd. Everything I did to reach this hopeless result. I had forgotten the Baudelaire orphans – completely, I only remember they existed after Jacques' death. I was focused on my father's rescue, all this fuss to, indeed, set him on fire. Fuck. It was hilarious.
"I don't know which Volunteer found you," he continued once calmed. "But I'm not sure he likes the idea.
- Hmhm. Well, he has no idea.
- So you're what, exactly? An informer? A double-agent?
- I would need to be on one side of the Schism.
- That's what your mother said, before you father killed her."
I did react. I blinked. He smiled even more. The arsehole knew that I didn't know – it was a secret. Most VFD members didn't know how my mother died. I doubt Jacques ever knew, by the way. I looked at Olaf without a word before he covered his distorted mouth with his innocent hand and exclaimed.
"You didn't know? My apologies, forget what I just said.
- My father killed my mother?" My voice sounded distant. Quite like my mind. "My father killed my mother?
- He didn't really appreciate her decision to work for herself and not for those stupid Volunteers. He appreciated even less her decision to follow the damned sugar bowl.
- And how do you know all that?
- I was there when she died."
His voice, completely unmoved, hid the truth better than his eyes. The night my mother died, I learnt it later, other people died. Olaf's parents. A simple way to daunt someone from playing with fire – the Schism, here.
Just to make sure, I am aware my mother wasn't a good person and that she probably deserved her death, at least in a way. But at this point, she still was this unknown face, this woman that was supposed to be dead in a car accident. The shock was harsh enough to keep me quiet. And it gave plenty of time to Olaf to fill the silence and rub it in. His way to get revenge on me.
"You'll ask your friends what happened. Well, especially my dear Kit Snicket," he grinded. His smile was going to eat up his whole face. "She'll tell you about the poisoned darts, about Beatrice Baudelaire's pleasure when she planted it in your mother's neck and your father's relief when she finally died.
- Well, I have murders in my genes then.
- Yeah you can… Wait, what?"
He wasn't waiting for that at all. His cruel smile, the delight in his voice, the sordid details he added to his story, all that was supposed to scare me. And disgust me. And break me. But I had stabbed my father in the stomach a week before, it was quite hard to disgust me. And you can't break what's broken, can you? And I wasn't really surprise, once the shock had vanished. Younger, I often wondered how my mother was, who she was. Every times I asked my father, his calms faltered and he tensed. He always found some banalities to say and changed the subject. No need to be a genius to understand their couple was going to the dogs when she died. With everything I had learned about my father and his involvement in VFD, learning that he had caused her death because she was on the wrong side of the Schism… One more revelation or one less, it didn't really matter.
Unconcerned, I looked at him. He looked back. And his smiled changed. From a sadistic glee, it went to something else. Content. Satisfaction. He turned away and got dangerously close to my bag. I kept my composure. If there was one thing he didn't know, it was that I had the sugar bowl. He looked outside and laughed again, but quietly.
"Well, congratulations, Cassandre," he finally said. "That was a beautiful fire.
- Thanks.
- Esme is furious. Your exploit made her unbearable and I am the one living with it.
- If you only knew how much I don't care." I frowned. "About Esme and her In clothes turned to ashes.
- Don't be jealous. I'll made use of your… Services."
His laugh lingered and he came closer to me. There was a world between the way Jacques walked close to me and the way he did. I almost thought he was going to stab me in the shoulder – the other one, to turn me into a cripple. Instead, he grabbed me by the shoulder – the wounded one, and pressed me against his lean chest. I restrained a yelp of pain and struggled to push him away. But whatever you can think of him, Olaf is strong. Strong enough to keep me in his hold, anyway.
I said I didn't cheat on Jacques. I didn't lie. When he pressed his lips against mine, I didn't react. I just took advantage of the situation to slip out of his grip and to the other side of the room. With a last laugh, he turned round and went back to the door.
"You're weren't so shy, last time.
- I knew you would tell me everything I needed. It helps.
- Say that a dozen of times," he declaimed, unlocking the door. "Maybe you'll believe it. Maybe you'll believe you didn't fall on my side, if you try hard enough.
- I'm not an Arsonist."
He froze. It took him an eternity to turn his head and look at me above his shoulder. I think it's this face that haunted – and still haunts, the Baudelaire's sleep. This arched eyebrow above nasty, sly eyes. This cruel smile, full of fateful promises. It also haunts my sleep, in fact – but I asked for it more than they did.
"You may not be an Arsonist, but you started this fire. You killed those people. And you killed your father. So maybe you're not one of us… But you're definitely not a noble heart."
I didn't have enough time to retort. He left exactly when he finished his sentence, and left me there, standing in a corner of the room. I don't know what I felt back then, apart from an unending emptiness. He hadn't said anything I had not already said to myself a hundred times. So I took my notebook, and answered my question.
The example my father talked about was my mother. A.B was my mother. In the end, all the mysteries I had written in my notebook were very simple since my mother was the answer to most of them. Pointless, you'd think, to write it in a damned notebook full of information about my dead father. You're probably right. But it's the only way I found to keep myself together.
This and, once the page completed, go back to Jacques. Just to believe for a few more days, precious days, that my heart was still noble. And forget what Olaf said. Enough time to hold him against me and forget the dancing flames in front of my eyes in the elevator shaft of the 667 Dark Avenue, the blood that dried on my hand and the pieces of my heart that I left there. And forget what Olaf said.
And I was right to do it. I only had a few days left with him – and then I would lose everything I had left in my life. Him.