Dear Rose...

Dear Rose…
By Alexandra Riera© 2007 Alexandra Riera

Dear Rose,

I promised I would write, so here I am meeting my promise even if it’s the last thing I really want to do right now. I know it’s been a long time; over six months since I left and in a way I feel quite bad about not having written to you earlier. My excuse is that what first started as a holiday has ended up turning into an abstract painting .

It all started when I landed at the airport. I opened my laptop and when I checked the mail I saw a mail from a Bernardo Golgorio whom I didn’t know. In the mail he said he was Mr Smith´s nephew and that as he had heard I was coming into town he would like to invite me for dinner on my arrival to welcome me into the city. He also gave his phone number. Of course I called him and yes, I did accept his offer for dinner.

You wouldn’t believe how beautiful he is, he’s absolutely gorgeous. Well, anyway, we had dinner and we ended up kissing and cuddling on the way back to his house. I won’t go into details because you’ll probably imagine what happened next. I don’t know how it happened but instead of going back to the hotel that night I stayed at his house and I carried on staying there as we were going from tour to tour, he showed me the city’s secret places and took me to other places too. We had great fun. We travelled all over the country and the last stop was here, from where I’m writing this from.

You wouldn’t believe the things I have found out about The Smiths, and to tell the truth that’s part of the reason I’m writing to you, I feel guilty. Guilty of knowing things that are supposed to be confidential but that I feel I have to share with somebody, as it’s making my head spin.

Please make sure you are seated and relaxed when you carry on reading this. It’s a bit complicated to tell in a letter really but I’ll try. Mr Smith is not really John Smith; he is Bernardo’s older sister and Bernardo’s mother at the same time. He seems to have a bit a surrealistic family. Not that changing his sex is a crime, no, but how that change of sex came about might be considered a crime by some. Bernardo is traumatised by it and so am I as I don’t know whether Bernardo is Bernardo or someone else.

I’d better start with names so that you get the whole picture right. There’s Anne: a young girl who gets pregnant by her uncle Tomas when she is very young. In those days things were different so what the family did was move house and pretend that the baby Anne had born was her little brother. Bernardo’s grandmother pretended Bernardo’s was hers so that people wouldn’t suspect. Now, everything would be more or less alright if things stopped there wouldn’t it? But no; the uncle came to live with them and pretended to be Anne’s father. I just can’t understand that part, to tell the truth but there you are. Tomas kept pestering Anne until she ran away one evening only to be found by Tomas in a brothel one night. That was the spark that started it all off. He took advantage of that situation; he started frequenting the place for free and had her doing all sorts of strange things for him and his friends. Anne ran away again and for a long time no-one knew where she was until Bernardo saw in the newspaper that his sister was going to marry a rich man in the north of the country.

You can guess what happened next, don’t you? Right, Tomas disappeared for a long time and no one in the family bothered to enquire about his whereabouts and eventually they all decided he must have died. They all hoped so as he had been a pest to all of them and they were happy about not seeing him again. Years later, when Bernardo’s grandmother died is when the truth came out. It turned out that Bernardo’s grandmother was also Bernardo’s sister. Bernardo was so shocked that he went to his sister’s house and asked her who his real mother was. Up until that day Anna hadn’t admitted to anyone that Bernardo was in fact her son and wasn’t prepared to have her new life jeopardised by her sordid past. She tried to kill him in her own house and almost succeeded if it hadn’t been for her husband. He had just walked into the room before she had time to pull the trigger on Bernardo.

Ana’s husband was a well respected man of course and as a scandal like that would have ruined him completely he sent Ana to a clinic where she had to undergo a change of sex and when that was done he sent her to the States as Mr Smith. Bernardo was sent to a monastery where he had to take a wow of silence.

Last year, he received a letter from John Smith asking for forgiveness. He was about to marry Zoe and wanted him to come to his wedding. Bernardo was so distraught that he ran away from the monastry.

I ´d met him two days after he left the monastry. He says we should marry as I’m pregnant. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that, didn’t I? Yes, I’m three months pregnant and I don’t know what to do. Well, I know what to do about the baby but I don’t know what to do about him. Should I stay with him? I don’t feel like having that mad Tomas as my baby’s grandfather or John Smith as my baby’s half grandmother or grandfather… What a mess!

We’re staying at this small house in a small village and people think we’ve been married for donkey’s years but we’re not. You know we’re not. I would have invited you to the wedding. Should I marry him or not? Should I just leave him? Should I have the baby and give it into adoption? Sorry, I shouldn’t ask you these questions as you can’t give me the answers but putting them in writing to you seems to help somehow eventhough it’s making me see things in a dark way.

I long for peace Rosemary, six months of constant travelling and falling in love with a man with a very strange past is not exactly good for my health. What if I have a baby girl and Bernardo becomes my grandchild’s father one day? After all, genes are genes. Perhaps it’s being pregnant what’s making me feel this way. Perhaps I should go back home and forget everything but… how can I forget what I know? How can I go back and pretend John Smith is just John Smith and not Bernardo’s mother? And you?

Oh well, Rosemary, I’d better go now and tidy the house a bit now as if he finds me writing a letter to you he’ll go mad and will probably do something silly as he usually does…. Yes Rosemary, he does, and the sickest thing of it is that I love him.

I love you Rosemary

Till soon,

Ruby



The end
(1230 Words)© 2007 Alexandra Riera