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After everything that happened in the Ministry of Love, his head no longer had to think; Winston was in a total blank.
The person, whom he believed for months was his salvation and his great hope, ended up disappointing him, as he was a loyal member of the Party, and through deception managed to make him love Big Brother, but the process was not very pleasant. This person was the one who tortured him and destroyed every aspect of him, both physically and emotionally. He subdued his rebellious and foolish spirit, and mistreated him sometimes unnecessarily just to insult him. He used him and despised him, telling him that he was dirty and that he was trash. A flaw in the plot and a stain that had to be erased.
He still remembered, as if his mind had taken a picture, that moment when O'Brien insulted him so horribly that if he had been given a small chance to cry, he would have, but he had cried and whimpered so much from the tortures that he had no more tears to shed. He also remembered, oh, he remembered, when they had locked him up in a large room, and he was lying on a stretcher, with O'Brien looking at him with a contempt that didn't even try to hide a trace of pity. Then he asked him how many fingers he was holding up. Winston said four, the man repeated the same question and he said four again. That's when he realized that the torture was beginning, and his words were then interrupted by a whimper of pain coming from himself, which originated because the needle had gone up to fifty-five; O'Brien was punishing him without telling him why.
It couldn't be possible, he never believed that, it never even crossed his mind.
He always saw O'Brien as a strong, superficial man. He never thought he would be so sadistic and cruel. In the moments of torture, O'Brien had such a blank face, without a trace of emotion, that he even doubted if that man possessed any.
Winston felt a hope in O'Brien from the beginning; he believed for months that he was his source of answers, but after that, he believed that idea was completely discarded. He needed an answer quickly. And that answer had to come from O'Brien.
He decided with total fear, but at the same time with great certainty, to return to that man's office; he had nothing to lose either. But O'Brien was a tough guy, who disarmed you with a look instantly. It would be difficult to have a long conversation with him... That was for sure.
He paced for half an hour in his apartment. Yes, he returned there, but barely. Where his thoughts returned to normal, but he preferred a thousand times that they had remained blank as they were a few minutes before, but they had also been corrupted in those minutes; that memory had to be erased from his mind, otherwise he would end up being cowardly.
With noticeable worry, somewhat emotional, he threw himself onto his bed, but tried to act silently; the telescreen was alert at all times, to any action and to any word spoken by him. He thought about it for a long time; he should talk to Mrs. Parsons, she should know something, or at least something to advise him and give him enough courage to even go the next day. He got out of bed lazily; his past thoughts were a nuisance, and he decided to smoke a Victory Cigarette, staring at the city.
With posters of "Big Brother is watching you" in almost all of London, and on almost all the buildings! Even the apartment where he lived had one; on every landing of the stairs there was a damn poster, and it was one of those strangely designed to follow you with its eyes.
He took another drag from the cigarette and crushed it on the edge of the window. He approached the door with difficulty, brought his hand, paler than ever, to the door handle, so dark and imperceptible that it was barely visible by the light of a candle that Winston had decided to leave burning in his window, and he doubted if the diary where he remembered leaving it was even still there... He went out of his apartment, which was the seventh, where he would have to go down the damn stairs to get to Mrs. Parsons', or Comrade Parsons'. The word 'Mrs.' was frowned upon in the Party. But he was still somewhat afraid of her children, and he also wondered what had become of her; perhaps her children had already denounced her to the Thought Police, as he had once thought. And well, her husband..., he already thought the worst of him when he was present when they took him to Room 101.
He remembered the last time he went, when she asked him to fix the sink pipes in her apartment. And as he was saying goodbye to Mrs. Parsons, he went towards the door; he had barely taken six steps when something hit him on the back of the neck and he felt a horrible pain, as if he had been hit hard with a hammer. Winston turned around just in time to see Mrs. Parsons struggling with her son on the threshold, while the boy was putting away his slingshot. The brat had thrown a stone at him... Believing him to be what? A thought criminal?
Pure nonsense...
He reconsidered and better returned to his apartment; he could ask Comrade Parsons the next day, perhaps her children wouldn't be there then, since they were in the Spies league... He abruptly opened the door and closed it with equal grace. He walked desperately towards his hiding place, looked where he left the diary, still warm and yellowish in color, and tore out a page; the diary was still there, but with signs of having been checked, probably by O'Brien, but not literally.
He angrily opened the kitchen drawer, took a pen that was hidden there, and wrote something on the page, on the kitchen table, which he had suddenly felt when he was in the hallway. He wrote delicately, but also nervously. Everything he felt was either too confusing or too absurd. But it was good to put it on paper, because if he didn't like it or wanted to forget about it, he would burn the page and problem solved!
The page read as follows:
"I felt the same way about him as before, that admiration, hope, and respect I had for him before 'that' happened, has returned. And it is totally foreign now, before it was very familiar, and just when I wanted to talk about it with someone... I need to get it out of my head, otherwise, I will go crazy. I know perfectly well that loving someone outside of Big Brother is strictly forbidden, as I now understand it more clearly, but... Is this love? I don't know, but I need my doubts to be resolved."
He dropped the pen, crumpled the paper, and threw it on the floor. He glanced at it for a few seconds and then focused on it again. He ran his hands through his blond hair and tugged it lightly. He was furious, he didn't know why, but he knew with whom.
"No, it's just my ideas," he thought. "I should sleep, I think it's late..." And it was. Sleep overwhelmed him, he nodded off, he would fall asleep at the kitchen table. But he didn't even realize it, and he was already sleeping in his bed, the candle was about to burn out in the window...
Dawn didn't take long to break again. Winston woke up abruptly, as the telescreen played its typical military music and only gave absurd news. He let out a slight sigh and got out of bed. He put on his characteristic blue overalls and walked towards the kitchen, where he was heading to have his venerable Victory Gin. He still couldn't believe that he had depended so much on that concoction.
But he felt a desperate knock on the door, as if that was the only thing the possible person outside had to do. Which was strange, but he didn't think about it much. He calmly approached the door, as it could either be any neighbor, or Mrs. Parsons, and it would be great if it were her. He turned the door handle and opened it. Outside, standing and with an inexplicable face, was O'Brien; it was astonishing...
"Winston..." O'Brien said, disguising it and entering the apartment. "How have you been? From what I see..., this is your apartment," he asked, with narrowed eyes and that serious and arrogant tone of his.
"O'Brien..." Winston said, quite perplexed. "Fine, I think. I'm surprised you have the nerve to even ask," he added, crossing his arms and frowning, looking at other angles of the room, avoiding eye contact with O'Brien. "And yes, this is my apartment."
O'Brien did something Winston didn't expect at all; tired of standing in the doorway, he grabbed Winston's wrists and trapped him, cornering him against the wall. "Why do you avoid me so much after making you go through the worst months of your miserable existence, huh, Smith?" O'Brien asked ironically. "Answer me! Answer me, Winston!" he exclaimed with total anger, just like in those months when he made him endure endless pain and suffering, when he used him in different ways, when he despised him and made him believe he was scum.
When they almost starved him to death and made him love Big Brother, and when he still felt love for O'Brien as well. "I always assumed you would come back for me, O'Brien. But what are you really looking for from me?" Winston asked, looking with difficulty into O'Brien's eyes, and abandoning that timid tone, using a harder one with that man, whom he completely did not know.
"What do you think, huh?" O'Brien said, returning the question and preventing him from breaking free from his grip. "Do you want to make me suffer again, to ask you for mercy again while you ignore me again? Do you want to mistreat me again, to break my spirit more than it already is? What do you want, O'Brien? What are you looking for from me, what the hell do you want with me!" he asked with pain in his voice, bringing up many facts in the conversation, facts he simply wished to forget. "I want to be able to love you, Winston! That's it!" O'Brien declared, shaking the aforementioned, who only looked at the floor with an empty gaze.
"Don't you understand? I want you to be mine. I did all that, not only so that you would love Big Brother, but so that you would forget Julia!" he said more clearly in Winston's face, but who still understood nothing. "When she was going to be tortured, she didn't even think twice about betraying you. I told you that much earlier, and I was amazed that you still loved her, cared for her, even a little. How can you love a traitor, a disgusting person, Winston? How?" O'Brien knew very well that this truth still hurt Winston; he didn't know how much, but at that moment it was in his favor and he shouldn't waste it. He had to be careful; he had to make Winston emotionally vulnerable again, so that he would seek comfort in him, only want him at that damn moment. Then he would take advantage and leave him suffering like a wounded animal.
"Did you really love Julia, Winston?" O'Brien questioned him, with that calm and professional voice to the aforementioned after a pause. His tone was so serene that he seemed like someone who only sought to help him out of a point of no return. He gave him such compromising and passive looks; what if O'Brien loved him after all? Seeing that the other did not respond, he decided to let go of him. "Did you think about her as much as you thought about me? Did you love her with all your soul? Because if that had been true, you wouldn't have betrayed her, just as she wouldn't have betrayed you if she had loved you in the same way." He approached Winston's "hiding place" and sat down, but with that penetrating gaze still fixed on him.
Only silence came from Winston; his gaze looked expressionless. He began to get lost in doubtfully existing thoughts and began to wander around his apartment while O'Brien merely intimidated him with his gaze. He had completely gotten rid of his childhood; sometimes he had those typical but vague dreams with his mother, rarely with his weak and small sister, but he didn't see them in all their splendor.
And, among other things, he never really knew for sure if he loved Julia with passion and affection, as it should have been if that sad and gray world in which they lived had been normal. Yes, he slept with her, they had sex, they slept together, and he contemplated her body, no longer in thoughts, but personally.
Her beauty, so authentic, young, and enviable. Her beautiful brown eyes and her white, freckled face.
They were both true lovers before the Thought Police caught them, took them to the Ministry of Love, and that bond broke from one day to the next...
And now that he thought about it better, O'Brien wasn't such a bad man; maybe everything Winston had to go through was so that he would open his eyes. O'Brien seemed like someone who only wanted to guide him to mental peace, who would take him in and help him become a straight and decent man again, someone worthy of loving and being loved by Big Brother, and perhaps, just perhaps, the Golden Country wasn't as false as he had thought and dreamed of long ago. But really, apart from that, did he love her or did he love her as much as he thought before?
"I..., well..." his words trailed off, and his face grew paler and paler. He didn't want to tell another lie again, because he wouldn't lie to O'Brien himself. If he did, if he said he loved Julia, Winston would really only be lying to himself. "I admit it, I always thought more about you than about Julia most of the time. I don't know for sure, and I still don't know if I even still love her," he murmured in a dull and trembling tone. "And no, I didn't love her. I liked her, but not with all my soul. I desired her, but not with my being. I was interested in Julia, but because I also wanted to have relations with her; since I saw her, I thought about that once or twice. I was afraid of losing that opportunity, that she would belong to someone else, that I wouldn't be able to do it, that she wouldn't be mine. I had so many disgusting ideas in mind..."
Winston stopped; he noticed that O'Brien was reading something. That something was the page from the diary that he had torn out the day before and thrown on the floor in that brief moment of anger. Why wasn't he smarter and didn't throw the paper out the window!
"Do you feel something for me? I don't know if in the way you said on that page, but do you feel any emotion from the present or the past for me, Winston Smith?" O'Brien asked, perplexed, and letting his serious gaze wander over the vast London landscape. What would they say in the Ministry of Truth, especially in Archives, seeing that Winston still hadn't arrived at work? Well, that wasn't important now. And besides, Winston wasn't the only one...
Winston again couldn't utter a word; this was even more serious than the previous interrogation... He would have to decide what to say; it was strange to say that he felt all that was written on the paper for O'Brien. How would he react? "It's not what you think... It's just that I..." barely saying that, he lowered his head again and frowned slightly, hating being with someone who almost ruined his life, but for whom he also felt inexplicable things. He hated O'Brien, that was for sure, but at the same time there was something much beyond that, but what was it? He had no logical answer for that, so he left the answer incomplete and remained silent.
"It is perfectly understandable that you are stressed by my sudden visit, Winston. But would you please answer what I asked you?" O'Brien said, with a presumptuous but also very educated tone. It was damn hard to keep lying about the man not being attractive, because in fact, he was.
"I simply can't find the right words, that's all," Winston murmured dryly, with an uncontrollable urge to leave the place and leave O'Brien standing there in his apartment.
"I understand, and perfectly," O'Brien continued, nodding, compassionate, and with his gaze fixed on him. "You were a difficult case in the past, and I notice that you still are...".