Chapter 1: The Original Radiance
In the neighbourhood, they said the sun seemed to have chosen Kima’s home as its residence. At twenty, she didn’t just walk; she radiated. Her matte skin, with its disturbingly perfect texture, recalled the fine clay her sculptor father used to caress in his workshop. It possessed that golden hue of late summer afternoons that never seemed to fade, even under the harsh light of the kitchen neon tubes.
“You forgot to buy my hand cream again, Kima!” her sister Sofia called out from the couch, her eyes glued to her screen.
Kima placed a plate into the sideboard, her movement precise. The wood of the shelf was polished by years of methodical scrubbing.
“The money Mother gave me was barely enough for flour and oil, Sofia,” Kima replied without animosity. “If you want cream, you’ll have to use your pocket money.”
“You are unbearable when you act like an accountant!” her sister snapped, rolling her eyes. “Mother! Look at how she speaks to me! It’s her duty to do the shopping properly!”
From the next room, no answer came, but the matriarch’s silence already weighed like a suspended sentence.
Her hair was a celebration of the earth: a deep chestnut, almost mahogany in the daylight, falling in natural waves down her back. Each curl seemed alive with a spirit of its own, a cascade of wild silk that she often had to discipline into a severe bun so the strands wouldn’t fall into the bread dough or the bleach. In fact, at that exact moment, she was wrestling with a rebellious hairpin, trying to push it back in with fingers reddened by the effort.
But it was her silhouette that struck people’s minds. Kima possessed that high waist, that arch of the back, and that carriage of the head that the haute couture houses of Paris or Milan would have elevated to an icon. She had the stature of an ancient queen, an innate grace that transformed her slightest movement into a silent choreography.
“Look at her,” murmured Sam, the eldest of the boys, nudging his brother Yosif’s elbow. “It looks like she’s auditioning just to mop the floor. It’s ridiculous for washing tiles.”
“Stop staring at her and give her a hand carrying the bag of coal waiting near the entrance instead,” Yosif replied with a chuckle, without making the slightest move to leave his armchair.
“Are you kidding? I have a match in an hour, I’m not going to get my hands dirty or ruin my back,” Sam retorted, stretching. “Kima! Did you wash my cleats at least?”
“They are drying on the balcony, Sam,” she answered without turning around, the rhythm of her arm remaining perfectly steady.
“And my sports socks? The white ones with the blue stripes?”
“In the second drawer of your dresser. Washed, folded, and scented with lavender.”
“Great. At least one person is useful around here,” he joked to Yosif with a chuckle.
Yet, this model-like physique was never showcased by silk or lace. Her “runway” was the cold tile floor of the family home, and her fashion “accessories” were heavy water buckets, overflowing laundry baskets, and worn-out brooms. The contrast was striking, almost painful to observe for anyone with a bit of sensitivity. One saw this divine creature, worthy of the greatest master paintings, kneeling to scrub the baseboards, her long, slender hands damaged by detergents before ever knowing the comfort of a moisturizer.
“Kima! Where is my white shirt? The one with the mother-of-pearl buttons?” Sam shouted again, having stood up to messily rummage through his wardrobe. “I can’t find it! You moved everything again!”
“It is ironed and hanging prominently in the middle of your closet, Sam. You just have to open your eyes.”
“You could have taken it out and laid it on my bed,” he grumbled, walking back toward the living room. “I’m going to be late meeting the guys at the cafe before the match because of you.”
“And my tea?” Sofia whined, shaking her empty cup. “It’s already completely cold. You took way too long to bring it from the kitchen.”
Kima froze her movement. She drew herself up to her full height. The motion was so fluid, so majestic, that the complaints and chuckles instantly died down in the room. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead with the back of her damp hand.
“The teapot is on the stove,” she said simply, fixing her sister with a gaze so intense that the latter lowered her eyes back to her phone. “Serve yourself, Sofia. Your hands aren’t busy holding a broom, as far as I know.”
“Don’t answer me like that,” Sofia muttered under her breath. “Mother will hear you.”
Kima was the invisible pillar. While her four brothers and her sister lived carelessly, wasting hours in futile discussions or unjustified rest, she was the silent engine of the house. She was the one who anticipated everyone’s needs, the one whose presence was only noticed by the impeccable order she left behind, but whose slightest delay caused outrage.
Suddenly, the front door opened with a familiar creak. Heavy, dragging footsteps echoed in the hallway, immediately followed by the appearance of the last two brothers, looking tired but hilarious.
“What smells like burning in here?” asked the youngest, tossing his school bag directly onto the clean dining room table.
“Take that bag off the table right now,” Kima ordered, her voice losing its gentleness for a moment. “I spent an hour polishing that wood.”
“— All right, calm down, Your Majesty,” the boy laughed, pushing the bag onto the floor. “You can’t do anything in this house anymore. What’s for dinner tonight? I’m starving.”
“Stew and fresh bread. But only when the floor is dry and the table is set.”
A heavy, measured step then made the floorboards of the main entrance creak. A massive silhouette stood out in the kitchen doorway, blocking the light from the hallway. Her mother watched her, arms crossed over her heavy chest, her gaze laden with an ancient and unyielding severity. The brothers’ conversations stopped dead.
“Less talking, more doing, Kima,” said the matriarch’s dry, sharp voice. “Your father will be home from his sculpture workshop soon, and the table isn’t even set. You definitely spend too much time daydreaming over your water buckets.”
“Everything will be ready in time, Mother,” Kima replied, immediately plunging her brush back into the soapy water to avoid facing that inquisitive gaze.
“That is what I expect from you. A girl your age takes no pride in a half-clean floor, and even less in her grand princess airs. Look at your hair, escaping from your bun again. Tie that up properly. Do you think your appearance exempts you from your duties to this family?”
“No, Mother. My duties are done, just like every day. The bread is rising under the cloth, the floor is almost dry, and the boys have everything they need for their outings.”
“Don’t answer me in that arrogant tone,” the mother cut in, narrowing her dark eyes. “Your pride will be your downfall, Kima. You think you are different; you think you are above everyone else because of the rumours in the neighbourhood. But here, you are just the daughter of this house. And your work is all that matters.”
A leaden silence fell over the room again. The brothers and sister watched the scene with a cowardly neutrality, only too happy to see their mother’s wrath focus on the eldest daughter rather than their own laziness. Kima did not flinch. She tightened the knots of her raw canvas apron with an almost mechanical regularity.
She did not complain. Her Leo zodiac sign gave her that silent pride: she wore her chores like family heirlooms, with a dignity that forbade pity. She knew she was beautiful, she knew she was intelligent, but she had already understood, in the shadow of her mother watching her with a predatory gaze, that her radiance would be her greatest trial. She was a sun locked in a cellar, but even there, in the darkness of domestic servitude, she refused to stop shining.
