Christian's Second Love
Summary: This is a story set ten years after the film, about Anne, Christian's wife.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Moulin Rouge or Christian (unfortunately), but I do own Anne, Robert and her father.
Warning: French words. V. scary. Sorry if the translation isn't very good, it's been a while since I spoke French!
Rating: PG for mild sexual references.
Enjoy, then review to tell me whether you did or not!
*****
Chapter 1
"I'm leaving you, Christian."
These were the words I said approximately twice a week when my husband, Christian, and I were still married. He called it my signature phrase. He even reminded me to say them if I had not said those words in a few days. It didn't hurt him; hardly anything I could say would ever bother him much. He would just smile at me if I tried to argue, and gave me my own way far too often. Being a woman, I know I'm supposed to thrive in this, but it loses its appeal if given too easily, and with Christian, it was always given too easily. This was what infuriated me so often, and usually the cause of my leaving him. But I was always back in the end. I couldn't help it, I loved him. Incidentally, this was the only topic that interested my dear husband. He revelled in the notion, he believed in it with his whole heart. Ironically, he probably loved love more than he ever loved me.
Christian and I met in Sacré-Coeur at a Mardi Gras festival in 1910, and his free spirit enchanted me from the beginning. We first set eyes on each other when we were standing on opposite sides of the Rue de Gudin as we watched the fire juggler. Straight away I saw a handsome face with sparkling eyes and an easy, natural charm. He, of course, claims it was love at first sight. Catching my eye, he smiled at me. The romance of the festival and being in Paris swept me away, and I left my father and fiancé to watch the many attractions while I slipped off to meet this attractive stranger. Maintaining eye contact, I walked along the crowd, him following me from across the street, until we reached the end of the procession and he crossed to join me. Taking my hand, he kissed it.
"Mademoiselle," he whispered, looking into my eyes. Normally I can't stand romance or talk of love, but the atmosphere had gone to my head. That and the half bottle of Chardonnay I had drunk from my fiancé's collection before we had come out.
"Monsieur," I breathed back.
"Comment t'appelle tu, ma petite belle?"
I had always had a weakness for the French, so I told him. "Je m'appelle Anne."
"C'est un nom anglais, ce n'est pas?"
"Mais oui, je suis anglaise."
"Well why didn't you say so?" he laughed, and I heard his accent was Scottish. I laughed too.
"Why didn't you say you were Scottish?! You have a very convincing French accent!" I retorted, giggling.
"Merci, Mademoiselle. Et tu aussi."
I smiled back. "So what is your name, Monsieur?"
"It's Christian."
Christian and I talked for a while, and he told me he was a writer and had been living in the region of Sacré-Croeur for a little over five years. He earned his living writing plays for the theatre, and was of "modest wealth", as he put it. I told him I had been formerly engaged to my fiancé, Robert, for seven months, and we were due to be married in another two. I lived in London with my mother and father and our many, many servants, and Robert was a business associate of my father whom I had been promised to since he lent my father the funds to start his own business two years ago. When Christian heard this, he was horrified.
"You mean, you're marrying a man you don't love?"
"I do love him. I think. I've never really thought about it. My mother's always said marrying is the only way to fall in love with somebody."
"What if he was taken away from you? Would you feel like your soul had been ripped in two?"
"Urm… well, I don't know, but he isn't going away-"
"Would you lie in bed all day, crying, not wanting to go on living?"
I was beginning to get alarmed at Christian's outburst, but I knew that in this situation you should nod and smile, and wait for the person to calm down. I had to do it enough when my father became angry. "I'm not sure, Christian."
He took a couple of deep breaths. "I'm sorry."
I suddenly understood. "You've been in love before." He didn't answer. "Did you lose her?" Still no reply. Feeling awkward, I decided to leave. "I'd better go, then. My fiancé will be waiting…" I took one last look at him, and started to go.
"Don't."
"Excuse me?"
"Don't leave, not yet. I want to show you something."
Oh my goodness, I thought, I'm going to be kidnapped by a madman. "No, I- I can't-"
"Come on, it won't take long. My home is minutes away. Come on."
"W-" I tried to protest, but he took me by the hand and began to guide me down the road. Perhaps guide is the wrong word. Drag may be more accurate.
Half walking, half running, I glanced anxiously over my shoulder to see if anybody had seen me go, but nobody was looking at us. Christian took me down the Rue des Rubis, and we stopped in front of a small building painted grey. The whole street was made up of bars and houses proclaiming "chambres louer" and "disponibles", and the house we had arrived at had words painted on the front wall saying "Maison des voyageurs". This seemed to be Christian's 'home', for he was taking out a key to unlock the door.
"Do you live here?"
"Yes." He was turning the key.
"For how long?"
"I told you, five years," he said as he pushed the door open.
"You've lived in a hotel for five years?" He ushered me in, and showed me up a very old flight of stairs.
"Yes." We arrived at the door to his room, which he unlocked and opened wide for me to enter. Walking in, I saw bare walls, a plain, low bed and one desk holding a typewriter with the chair standing several feet away.
"You've been living like this for five years?" I asked him incredulously. I knew I sounded superior, but I had grown up with everything I had ever wanted, servants at my beck and call, and to live life so basically seemed so unimaginable, and yet strangely appealing.
"Why not?" He answered simply, sitting on the bed.
Why not indeed. "So, what are you showing me?"
"Ah, that." He reached under his bed and pulled out a brown leather box, which he handed to me. "Open it."
I did as instructed, and there, inside, lay a manuscript. I read the title and gasped. "You wrote Spectacular, Spectacular?" He nodded. I was so excited, I had seen the play years before on a previous trip to Paris with my family. A friend of my father's had recommended it, saying he had been to the début performance and it had been outstanding. The play had been running around Europe for some time when we saw it, but the way the characters were expressed through music astounded me. I loved music.
"Remember the story? The courtesan and the sitar player?"
"Of course," I replied, flicking through the script.
"Satine was the courtesan."
"So you were the sitar player. Didn't the play have a happy ending? Yes, the Maha-Rajah was rebelled upon by his own armies and they exiled him to the far side of the world, and then the courtesan and sitar player inherited his kingdom and lived there happily for a hundred years."
"Not originally. That was changed the day after the first performance. Take a look."
Confused, I flipped to the end of the script. "The courtesan dies in the arms of her lover. My God… is that how it really ended?"
"The consumption."
"I'm so sorry."
"Don't be. What I had with Satine showed me the definition of that which I believed in most truly- love."
I was a little uncomfortable with the last statement. Were men not supposed to sneer at love? "So what else did you believe in?"
"Freedom. Truth. Beauty."
"Aah, a Bohemian revolutionary." I had heard about such folk. They sang, composed and wrote, but above all, drank too much. "Freedom, truth and beauty, eh?"
"You definitely personify the latter." He reached up to take my hand, and kissed it.
Now, don't judge me too much. As I have said, I had drunk quite a lot of wine earlier that day. But, I am ashamed to say, that when he drew me closer, I sat down next to him. And I'm even more ashamed to say that when he kissed me lightly on the lips, I kissed him back. But not for long. Pulling back, I murmured, "I'm engaged…"
"To a man you don't love…" he whispered back, his nose a fraction of an inch from mine, and kissed me again.
My brain was screaming at me to stop. This isn't what I do! I thought. I'm kissing a man I've just met, and I don't even know his last name! Try as I might, I couldn't tear myself away, and I stayed in his room for ages. We talked about everything, until I realized the time. I had been gone from the festival for three hours!
"Oh my God! I have to go now. Oh, my. My father and Robert will be so worried. They'll be looking for me."
I was relieved that he nodded instead of trying to get me to stay, and opened the door for me. "Come back and see me."
I smiled. "I'll do that. Goodbye."
I ran back down the streets to the festival, but there were still so many people there and I could not see my fiancé or father among the vast crowds. The procession had finished, but the entertainers were wandering around the food stalls, their masked, painted faces and elaborate costumes looking very strange among the normal folk. Suddenly I felt a hand grip my shoulder hard, and turned around in alarm. I came face to face with Robert, and he looked quite angry.
"Darling!" I cried, flinging my arms around his neck.
"Where on earth have you been?" He demanded when he had removed himself from my hold. "I've been looking for you for an hour!"
"Nowhere, I just felt faint and decided to go for a walk," I lied, grinning. I knew he was bound to forgive me if I smiled. He was always telling me to look happier. He visibly weakened, as I knew he would.
"Very well. We must find your father and return to the chateau, it's getting late."
*****
After an uneventful night, my fiancé was making plans to go to Notre Dame to visit a distant family member, but I refused to go, claiming to have a headache. He left me in bed, wishing me a speedy recovery and telling our chamber maid, Antoinette, to watch me. After he left, I quickly dressed, slipped Antoinette five francs for her discretion, and left for Christian's hotel.
Once I arrived in the street after the short walk, I was unsure of how to get into the building. I pounded on the front door until the irate landlady let me in and sent me up to his room with the key. I was surprised, but she seemed to be a little scared of me so I left her alone quickly and let myself into Christian's room. He wasn't there, so I sat down on the bed, hoping to not have a long wait. I was in luck. Ten minutes later, he came in through the unlocked door, looking bemused, but understood when he saw me on the bed. He was carrying a basket full of various foodstuffs and some flowers, which he handed to me. I was touched.
"But you didn't even know I would come back!"
"I thought I'd better be prepared. How long can you stay?"
"A long time," I answered, wriggling happily, and grinned and sat down beside me.
The only explanation I can think of for going to see Christian was that I was exercising the last bit of freedom that I had before marrying Robert. That certainly explains why I slept with him that second day. I was a virgin of course, and it gave me a thrill to be so daring, and a sort of smugness that Robert wouldn't be the first to touch me after all. It would stop his arrogance if he knew, I thought, satisfied. We were staying in Paris for two more weeks, and every day I made an excuse not to go with Robert, duly paid Antoinette and slipped out to see Christian, always arriving back at the chateau before Robert. My affair gave me a new sense of fulfillment, and I was constantly giggling to myself. I knew Robert must suspect something, but he would never guess the real reason of my happiness. He thought of me as such a good girl, and I intended to keep it that way.
The day before I was due to leave, Christian and I were lying on the bed, our bodies covered by his blankets, when something occurred to me.
"Who was the Maha-Rajah?" I asked, propping myself up on one elbow to look at him.
"What do you mean?"
"You said your lover was the courtesan and you were the sitar player. So who was the Maha-Rajah?"
He turned onto his back. "A Duke. Satine was promised to him in exchange for financing the play."
"Oh."
He put his arms around me, and we lay there for a few moments, before I thought of something else.
"That's like me and Robert. He only agreed to give my father the money if he could marry me. You're right. I don't love him, and I never have."
Christian turned my head to make me face him, and looked deep into my eyes for a long time. Then he spoke. "Anne, the worst thing I ever did was to allow the play to get in the way of my love for Satine. Don't make the mistake of not following your heart to please other people."
I rolled my eyes. I didn't want to hear that. "Look, Christian, we're very different. Maybe getting married to Robert isn't something I particularly long to do, but I don't have anything else planned, and I'm not unhappy with him! He's a good man and he cares about me. I'm going to marry him because it's a good idea and even though I don't love him now, I will probably grow to."
"But what if you don't? Could you live your life knowing you'll never find love?"
"You can't miss something you never had."
"I think you're making a mistake. Love is the most important thing in the world. Without it, our lives are empty. You might think you're happy, but you're lying to yourself."
"I don't care what you think," I replied, wrapping the old blanket around me and stepping onto the floor to look for my clothes.
He wrapped the other blanket around his own waist and put his arms around me from behind. "Stay."
"What?" I had put my dress back on loosely and was holding my shoes. Realizing what he meant, I dropped one in shock and pulled away. "You're mad."
"No, I'm not. Stay with me in Paris. Come on, what have you got to lose?"
"A marriage, a family, a future!"
"You can have those with me."
I half laughed, grabbing a hair brush and angrily tugging it through my hair. "Stop it, Christian."
"Well you care about me don't you?"
"I care about a lot of things," I exclaimed, pointing my shoe at him for emphasis, "but it doesn't mean I'm going to leave my fiancé for them!" I pulled on my coat and shoe and strode towards the door.
"I love you, Anne." I stopped dead. "I love you," he repeated.
*****
That's it for now! Please tell me what you think!
French translations-
Comment t'appelle tu, ma petite belle- what is your name, my little beauty?
Je m'appelle Anne- my name is Anne
C'est un nom anglais, ce n'est pas- that's an English name, isn't it?
Mais oui, je suis anglaise- but yes, I am English
Merci, Mademoiselle. Et tu aussi- thank you, miss. So do you