Masquerade (16 page)
Authors: Georgia Le Carre
M
y name is not really Lena Seagull. Seagull is the nickname my father has been given by those who know him. While you are alive he will steal everything from you, and when you are dead he will steal even your eyeballs.
My first vivid memory is one of violence. When I was five years old I disobeyed my father. I refused to do something he wanted. I cannot remember what it was he wanted anymore. It was something small, insignificant. Definitely unimportant. He did not get angry. He nodded thoughtfully. Calmly he told my mother to put a pot of water on to boil. I remember her white face and her shaking hands clearly. She knew my father, you see. She put the water on to boil. He sat and smoked his pipe quietly.
‘Is the water boiled yet?’ he asked every so often.
‘No,’ she would say, her voice trembling with fear, and he would nod and carry on puffing on his pipe.
Eventually, she said, ‘Yes. The water is ready.’
He put his pipe down carefully and stood. There was no anger. Perhaps he even sighed.
‘Come here,’ he called to my mother.
By now my mother’s fear had communicated itself to me and I had begun to fidget, fret and hop from foot to foot in abject terror. I sobbed and cried out that I was sorry. I was very sorry. I would never again do such a thing. My father ignored me.
‘Please, please,’ I begged.
‘Put the child on the chair,’ he instructed.
My mother, with tears streaming down her cheeks, put me on the chair. Even then I think she already knew exactly what was about to happen because she smiled at me sadly, but with such love that I remember it to this day.
Reluctantly, she dragged her feet back to my father.
With the dizzying speed of a striking snake he grabbed her hand and plunged it into the boiling water. My mother’s eyes bulged and she opened her mouth to scream, but the only sound that came out was the sound that someone makes when they are trying to vomit. While she writhed and twisted in agony he turned his beautiful blue eyes toward me. My father is an extremely handsome man.
The horror and shock silenced my screams and weighted me to my chair. For what seemed like eternity I could not move a single muscle
. And then I began to shriek. A single piercing wail of terror. My father took my mother’s hand and rushed her outside and plunged her hand into the snow. I ran out and watched them. My mother’s face was ghostly white and her teeth were chattering uncontrollably. Then she turned to look at me and snapped them shut like a trap.
I was never the same after that day. I obeyed my father in all things…
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