The Dartagnan Brothers Hotel

Chapter 18

Monalisa took out from the pocket of her jacket what appeared to be a small round device that resembled some kind of smartphone. She looked deep into Jonas's eyes and spread a brief smile in the corner of her face before she could touch the screen of the device, seemingly in control of what would happen next. Jonas felt a strong headache, even greater than the previous ones; he knew he would be immersed in another of those lucid dreams even before he felt the first strain of pain, but what surprised him was the ease with which Giovanni's accomplice had transported him into chaos.
"Jonas soon realised that he was induced into one of Monalisa's dream. He could see a woman, with her back turned to him, leaning on the edge of a bed, whilst crying and trying to control herself at the same time. A small hand, from the person lying on the bed, stroked her head and said that everything was going to be okay, the voices mixed and the faces were completely hidden from him, and as much as Jonas tried, he couldn't move to get a better view of what was going on.
'You need to help yourself, the worst is over.' said Monalisa, still showing the back of her head as she sobbed.
The person was silent, and Monalisa's little sobbing was replaced by a simple image. Jonas was still watching her from behind, but the thin and awkward posture of the woman he had met a few hours ago already showed him her identity. The old lady had an old tic on her neck; little by little she twisted her head to the right side to look for a small crack in the bones, it seemed like a simple gesture, but it was one of those things that would become a nuisance for the rest of the day if it weren't soon calmed down.
Monalisa found herself watching television and going from channel to channel without giving the device time to show her what was being broadcasted. She looked like a tired and anxious old woman. Beside her, on a small side table, was an ashtray completely crammed with cigarette butts, as well as several bottles of alcohol that rested on the table already empty or near the end; on the opposite side a small metal pipe reproduced what, until that moment, Jonas had never seen before, the object was used to smoke strong drugs, such as crack or methamphetamine. She whimpered and sobbed, as she lit a cigarette on the tip of the other, as if she was trying to prevent the flame from going out. With each butt she squeezed between the others, she took a huge sip from one of the bottles. There was a large, dirty glass there, but the old woman no longer bothered to pour the drink on it. The floor, which she seemed to avoid putting her feet on, was filthy and full of garbage, which included broken bottles and cans of food that created life within themselves. The scene was not scary, but rather disgusting. Jonas was creating an urge within him, but he tried not to let his emotions steal his attention. He needed to seize that moment. 'If she is making me experience this, there must be a reason.', he thought as he shook his head and returned to paying attention to the woman's movements.
For the first time, Monalisa stood up and faced a direction that allowed Jonas to get a good glimpse at her. Her face looked a little younger, more alert and less wrinkled, but she still carried an ugly and uncared desire for appearance, the exact look that someone would have after a long time without taking care of their own health, which was shown to Jonas deliberately. He was watching that scene for some reason, Monalisa wanted to show him something.
The scenario changed again. The woman no longer looked so old, much less destroyed by drugs. The various bottles of cheap and strong alcohol had given way to a beautiful and full glass of wine, while cigarettes had not yet accumulated and the metal pipe was not present. The house where she was staying was organised and her hair still looked clean. Her face was still filled with the strong bonds of depression as her catatonic vision indicated trauma, and her lack of haste for the simple things that surrounded her gave it a clear indication that life had not been fair, if such a thing even existed.
Jonas realised that Monalisa had been spamming some kind of her own timeline in his mind. That dream was there to show him something. The image of her sitting on the bed with someone indicated some kind of illness, and her deteriorated state before that could only mean that the situation had been deteriorating for some time. The next image propagated by Monalisa already showed a happier life, but her face was no longer showing.
A beautiful garden surrounded by toys, swings and seesaws brought the image of a bouncing girl who came and went from side to side turning around in the wind whilst letting strands of hair mess up his vision and hiding her face from whatever problem the world could lay at her feet. And those were feet that Jonas readily came to recognise.
As soon as he realised where he was, his heart was taken by another shock. Not because it was the garden of Joana's old house, but because he was trying to understand what kind of connection that Monalisa might have with her ex-girlfriend. For Jonas, it was frightening that all those people, who he did not know, knew so much about his life and the details that had spoiled his relationship with Joana. But that was a matter from the past. Jonas knew he had never experienced that particular situation, he had no memory of seeing Joana skipping around a garden like that, as if she was a child waiting to go to a toy store. Obviously, Joana's joy and willingness to live brought contagious happiness, but that particular situation was being imprinted in Jonas's dreams as something that had been real in someone else's past.
'Here, Joana, come and see!' the voice exclaimed as the former love of his life allowed her hair to flick back and showed the stunning beauty of her perfect face.
She came running towards Jonas. The voice came from behind him, but he had no way of turning his attention to the person who was acclaiming the name of his beloved, he could only feel that he knew that voice, and he knew it very well.
A whirlwind changed the mirroring of his vision again. The old woman went back to look like as she was wearing a mummy costume, with wrinkled skin and a bag under her eyes that sustained insomnia and a huge variety of mixed drugs that seemed to ease her pain. Monalisa's face now looked into Jonas's eyes, as if the person knew he was watching her, but Jonas was not intimidated. He looked deeply into the eyes of the lady who was trying to scare him with all those deceptive propagations and did not hesitate to speak:
'Whatever you want, come and take it from me...'"
After his face was crammed with a punch, his mind woke up and came face to face with Monalisa's, who was still resting her hand in the air with a sign that she would soon lower it to hit him again.
'I'm here, I'll take everything I want from you!' she replied whilst letting the arm, which held the gun with the grip pointed down fall over Jonas's face.
His head started to spin. His attention was lost by the pain that hung over his already swollen eyes as his lips started to slowly bleed. That weapon was heavy and made him feel a strain of pain so strong that it was able to hinder him from thinking.
'What the fuck did I do to you?' he asked with the little air he was able to grasp and still hold in his lungs before he could cough and sharpen the pain in his head.
'Don't you realize who I am?' asked Monalisa.
'I've got no idea of who you are.'
'The dream I just showed you!' she exclaimed vehemently, hoping that Jonas would be inspired by his wits and finally realize who she was.
'How do you know about my story with Joana?' he demanded an explanation as he came back from the buzzing in his head, trying to understand why that woman knew so much about his life.
'Your story?' the gun's grip beat his face once again. 'Look at my face, look into my eyes and tell me that you still don't know who I am!'
Her face did seem familiar, but his mind was failing to make sense of who that person might be. Jonas sought to look deeply into her eyes with the hope that his memory would bring a moment of clarity to his mind that would indicate the identity of the woman who tormented him.
'You tortured my daughter!' she exclaimed as she wiped the tears that were falling from her face.
'Lais Amon?' he asked incredulously. He could never imagine that that woman was Joana's mother. Her face was disfigured by the constant use of drugs and alcohol.
'Yes, Jonas. It's me.' she replied whilst resuming her composure.
'What are you doing here?' he asked as he tried to get up from the floor and walk away with his hands raised. He didn't want to give any reason for the woman to fire that gun at him.
'You have no right to ask me questions!'
'What do you want from me?' he ignored the order.
The grip of the weapon struck his the face one more time, causing Jonas to fall before he could even completely get up from the last hit. His face was throbbing with pain and his right eye started to swell, impairing his vision as he spat out the blood that accumulated in his mouth.
'Please stop...' he pleaded as he put his hands over his head and knelt on the floor.
'Listen very well to what I'm going to say. I am not here to help you, quite the contrary, you are the one who will help me. You will do everything I say, without questioning anything, and then maybe, and only maybe, you can still leave this place alive. Understood?' Monalisa did not expect an answer, but Jonas decided to contradict the woman who had him at gunpoint.
'No. You will tell me exactly what you are doing here and why I have to help you. And before you threaten me again, know that I am more than tired of this whole situation and I am no longer afraid of what may happen to me.' he finished, still on his knees, holding Monalisa's hands, which were pointing the gun at him. He brought the object so close to his own face as he closed his eyes and waited for his fate to finally catch up with him.
Monalisa seemed to be surprised by Jonas's reaction; she certainly didn't expect that to happen. He felt very confident as he realised that she had stopped to rethink the situation as she needed to readjust her plan to that new reality. He had never had a close relationship with Lais Amon, but that person in front of him was no longer the sweet woman he had known. Not only because of the appearance that had made her unrecognisable, but also because of the expression on her eyes. A dark and injured soul bearing many problems that had been deteriorating her will to live. He could feel the vengeance that came with each glance the woman gave him, he knew that his courage should have a limit and he could not let his emotions let him lose control.
The two continued looking at each other without making a single sound. The air was dense and any step outside the curve could trigger an unfavourable reaction for Jonas. 'If she wants me alive, I must have some use.', he thought as he searched for the right words to say so Monalisa would give him some credit and tell him what she was planning to do.
'Think again Lais.' he started before being interrupted.
'Monalisa! If you call me Lais again I will pull this trigger without thinking twice, do you understand?' she emphasised her words.
Jonas just nodded as he swallowed the saliva that fear had produced in his mouth. 'There are lines that my courage must not cross.', he thought whilst resuming his reasoning.
'I'm sorry, Monalisa. I need you to include me in your plan. There is no way I can do exactly what you want without knowing what your goal is.'
'Where's the key I gave you?' she asked as she lowered the weapon and held out a hand towards Jonas.
Soon Jonas could see that he had an advantage over Monalisa. If he was there, alive, she must have had a purpose for him. The key didn't matter at all, she was the one who had given it to him, but if she had risked helping him get there, going against Giovanni and all the other members of the sect, it was because he held a certain importance to her plans. That made Jonas wonder what those plans were, and why she didn't just take him to Giovanni and let Mr. Dartagnan have his way with him and go on with his torture plan.
'What do you want from me?' he asked again as he took the key out of his pocket and handed it over.
'Are you fucking dyslexic or something?' she frowned as if she wasn't expecting an answer. 'I told you, I want you to do what I tell you, without asking questions.'
Monalisa took the key and put the gun on the strap that tightened her dress as she slowly moved away from Jonas until she could reach the small statue of the fish. She bent down carefully and inserted the key into a small lock that Jonas could not see. The statue made a small crack, causing a drawer to open at its base, the compartment was too small for her to remove anything significant from there, but the surprises continued to captivate Jonas's eyes. Monalisa tugged, very gently, on a cylindrical object that appeared to be larger than the compartment that held it; its appearance was simple, despite the dark red color that gave him an elegance worthy of being owned by Giovanni Dartagnan.
'I imagine you won't tell me what this stick is for?' asked Jonas as he tried to open the eye which was getting more and more swollen due to the blows he had been receiving.
Monalisa sighed heavily, trying to ignore the voice that plagued her concentration, as she seemed to be having some difficulty following her own instructions.
'You disgust me!' she said as she crouched down next to Jonas's face. 'And this is the key so I can get out of here as I planned.
Jonas closed his eyes and swallowed the vomit that formed inside his mouth. Monalisa exhaled alcohol through all the pores of her body, and her breath smelled like a mixture of ashtrays with a lack of appetite. She went back towards the statue, taking out of her dress an object similar to the one she had just removed from the statue, replacing it, and turning back the key. After making sure that the small drawer was properly locked, she lifted her arm all the way back and threw the key with as much force as she could at a random place. Jonas let his eyes follow the path the key was taking, thinking of a future situation that he would need to find it, but looking for a false object in the middle of that maze did not seem like a sensible thing to pursue.
As the woman tried to recover from a sudden lack of balance, Jonas began to think about the object that he had seen in her hands a few minutes ago. The small round device should mean something that could answer the questions he still had about his psychotic episodes. The depersonalisations that followed each and every movement of his life, without being invited, seemed to have some kind of remote control for it to be activated. He had lost sight of the object, but he was sure it was still there, as Monalisa put and removed things from the bust of her dress as if it was a bottomless hole.
He needed to get his hands on that device; it would be the key so that he could take back control of his life and get out of that place.
'How long have you been part of the C.P.F?' Jonas's question put an intriguing expression on Monalisa's face.
'How do you know about that?' she asked as she untied her dress.
'I have my ways.' he said as he got up.
'Let's get out of here. I need to hand you over to Giovanni.' she said as if that was the most normal thing in the world.
Jonas fell hard back with his ass on the floor and started to laugh wildly as he felt an enormous amount of pain in every single cell of his body. Once again, he was all dirty and embarrassed, but he knew that this time his appearance would not cause any suspicions.
'What's so fucking funny?'
'The fact that you think I'm going back to Giovanni.'
'That wasn't a question... It was an order!' she said as she wielded the gun again towards his head.
'I thought it was already clear that I'm not afraid of you!' exclaimed Jonas whilst looking at the woman from the bottom up. 'You've already showed me that you can't kill me, you need me.'
'Well, it's time for you to rethink this little theory of yours.' she said as she cocked the gun. 'I need you in front of Giovanni, dead or alive. Delivering you alive would give me a greater reward and satisfaction, but I will not hesitate to drag you around whilst you bleed through the hole I will put in your belly.'
Monalisa's voice sang in a psychotic tone. For the first time, Jonas was afraid of the wrinkled old woman. Ever since he learned that the woman was Lais Amon, he had thought that he could persuade her to get him out of there somehow. He thought that the sweet lady he had once known was asleep within that sordid mind that accompanied Giovanni in his tortures; he thought there was a way to awaken that character who was covered with hatred and desire for revenge; he thought Monalisa was his passport out of there.
'How long have you been doing this?' he asked as he got up and started walking beside Monalisa.
'This what?' she asked ironically, implying that Jonas hadn't known her in a long time.
'That, you know... Part of Giovanni's sect.'
'I met Giovanni a few months ago, but I'm not part of any sect.'
'Then why are you here? Do you want me to have the same fate as the other heretics?' he asked wryly.
'You need to learn to follow the development of things quickly, boy. Why do you think I helped you get out of where I want to take you back? What sense do you make out of that?'
Jonas began to think with what was left of his wits. It really didn't make any sense for the old woman to take him there. She held the key before he ever did and had him just a few feet away from Giovanni, it was never so easy to hand him over to the head of the sect and receive whatever her reward was.
'Maybe you needed me to complete what was missing in the key...' he argued after eliminating any other hypothesis.
'Very well. But I could have gone to the room that I, myself, told you about and get what was missing from the key. Why would I need you?' she continued what seemed to be some kind of trivia contest.
The experience he was having talking to Monalisa was more intriguing than any other he had ever had. Both the Dartagnan brothers had made him a fool with their answers, causing each puzzle to have more questions than answers. 'Maybe I can find the answers I am looking for so much if I play this woman's game correctly.', he thought as he left his wandering thoughts and returned to the concrete situation.
'A bigger impact, maybe?' he asked himself, raising his eyebrow and feeling stupid at the same time.
'That would be a ridiculous reason, wouldn't it? Let's just say that such an assumption is part of a larger motive.' she turned her attention to him as the two continued walking through the maze towards the great stairs.
Jonas couldn't quite understand, but it seemed that Monalisa had been letting herself create some kind of bond with him. 'She seems quite drunk, maybe I can take advantage of it.', he thought as he remembered how charismatic he was when he was drunk. He decided to put a landscape expression on his face and pretend that he no longer understood anything.
'You need to understand that you ended my daughter's life. I feel disgust, anger, and aversion every time I look at that dirty face of yours...' Jonas completely changed his expression; what seemed to him that was creating a bond was nothing more than another kind of mental game. He had never been so offended in his life.
He understood that that woman was not playing around, much less letting her drunkenness hinder her plans. Her manipulations were making Jonas comfortable with the situation, something that would make it easier for her to hand him over to Giovanni without any scratches.
'All this because of the abortion?' he dared to ask.
'Beg you a pardon?' she exclaimed aloud as she removed the gun from her holster and pointed it at Jonas again. 'Give me a reason, you useless piece of shit, so I won't end this right now.'
'Do you really think we would have been good parents at that age?' he asked without showing any fear towards Monalisa's action. 'Do you really believe that it would have been a better option to ruin our lives with an unwanted child?'
Monalisa was not pleased at all with that story, but she seemed to have a very strong motive within herself that prevented her from shooting Jonas, which made her lower her pistol and concentrate her forces on keeping calm.
'You never spoke to Joana again after what you did, did you?' she asked rhetorically. 'Do you know what happened to that poor girl after you left?'
Jonas didn't want to answer. If those dreams that were induced into his mind during the last hours had any chance of being real, he already had a feeling that Joana's life did not took a turn for the best.
'And you reckon that giving me to Giovanni will fix the mistakes of the past?' Jonas knew he could beat the old woman if he brought out his sentimental side; he could be cold when he needed to.
'My goal is not to fix the mistakes of the past Jonas, but to make you pay for what you did to my daughter and our whole family.' she replied, drying the tears that started to fill her eyes.
'And for that you want to feed this archaic sect and satisfy the sordid desires of repressed old people?'
'You don't understand...' Jonas seemed to be touching a sensitive spot.
'Why don't you let me see Joana? I know that I cannot bring back the days lost by my mistakes, but perhaps I can bring better days for the future.'
He realised, as soon as he finished speaking, that he had exhausted any possibility of getting into Monalisa's head. It was clear that the woman was in no condition to respond to emotional blackmail, and the way he had spoken was so palpable and so insensitive, that she was never letting him go. Jonas had loved Joana, really and very deeply, but that was already a turned page in his life, and now his only goal was to get out of there alive so he could disappear into the world and never have to see those people again; he didn't even want to go after the police or the media so that he could satisfy the wishes that Getulio had laid on him, he just wanted to forget all of that and move on with his life.
'Do you want to meet with Joana?' asked Monalisa, sarcastically, as she put the gun back on her belt.
'Yes...' he replied whilst trying to win the emotional game between them.
She made a brief signal, indicating with her hand that Jonas should follow the path that was right in front of him. He stopped to think that he had paid no attention to anything within the maze. Monalisa seemed to have memorised the path as they did not have to return even once and were getting closer and closer to the stairs that led to the main party hall, where Giovanni would certainly be waiting for him surrounded by thugs, making it impossible for Jonas to escape. He felt that his end was finally about to come, soon he would have to face the consequences of his actions and endure the penance that Giovanni's sect had saved for him.
'And what would you like to say to my daughter, if you could see her today?' she asked with a slight smile as her shaking hand reached for a cigarette from inside the bust of her dress. 'Come on.' she pushed him after taking the first drag.
'I would apologize.' Jonas said after holding his weight back.
He had no idea what he would say to Joana if he could see her at that moment. He hadn't seen her in so many years and he didn't know if he still felt anything for her. Perhaps she was still the greatest love of his life and would be the one for him forever, as he had never loved anyone the way he had loved Joana. However, he didn't think much about his old girlfriend, although he still had a dream or another that made him wake up depressed and homesick, he always tried to think that he missed the feeling he had for her, the intimacy that the two shared, and the good times they spent together, but he did not have hopes and dreams that one day they would meet again to follow up that troubled history.
'As if apologising at this point would make any difference in my daughter's life. Don't be a fucking arsehole.' Monalisa tried to speed up the pace as they approached the exit of the maze.
Jonas was quiet, but trying to slow down the pace as they were getting closer and closer. He knew that nothing else could save him from the situation that was about to come, but it brought him a certain comfort to know that he was extending his life span for a few seconds.
'Why didn't you just gave me to Giovanni when you saw me in the cult hall?' he insisted in the same unanswered question, still not believing that this was all to make a bigger impact.
'The goal, Jonas.' she changed the tone of her voice as if she were talking to a child. 'It's using you as a bargaining chip. Understood?' she spoke as she gave two light slaps on the top of his head. 'That's why I had to get you away from there, so I could bring you back as if you were on the brink of escaping. It needs to look real!'
'How do you want to use me as a bargaining chip?'
'Joana is alive, and Giovanni holds her hostage in the rubbles of this estate. Nobody knows that she is my daughter. Giovanni would never free her from her penance just for that particular reason, but if I am the person who brings him his most glorious prey, I may be able to exchange one life for another.'