Christina Ch 2
Erik started and reached for his mask all but falling off the sofa in the process, what with it being too short for his long legs. He could see that it was still a little bit light and that the fire had died down, leaving a definite chill in the room. Something had awakened him. He slipped his boots back on and found his cloak, gloves and hat, and then remembered the book and grabbed it, and moved into the shadows. Soon a lone figure entered the room stealthily, examining every nook and cranny of the room. In the dim light given off by the dying fire, Erik could see the man's dark, swarthy features and broken teeth. Judging by the way he reeked, he hadn't bathed in months ('Well, it's been a good week since I did either!', he thought. 'I hope I don't smell that bad!') Erik was ready to challenge him when another voice called out, asking, "You OK? Whatcha find?" The voice was a rough whisper, but the language was one he had hoped never to hear again – Romani, the language of the gypsies. So there were at least two…
"Someone's been here. There's what's left of a fire and a blanket in here. Fire's recent so it hasn't been too long ago!"
Erik stealthily made his way into the bedroom and silently closed the door. He needed to think of something quick! With his superb vision in the dim late evening light, he could make out a walking cane, bedroom slippers and a robe. He quietly changed into a night shirt he found in an armoire, slipped into the robe and slippers. He was just reaching for the cane when the door flew open. 'Time to put on an act!' he thought. He looked up unsteadily, "Who are you? What do you want here?" and came toward the intruder, leaning over heavily on the cane, speaking in Farsi. Erik figured that Farsi would be the least likely language that they would know. It was either Farsi or English.
"Haha! Constantino! I have a live one for you!" he called over his shoulder. "I'm guessing he's around 65 or more?" He turned back to Erik and asked him, in Romani, "Who are you? Non comprendo?"
Erik looked at him confused and asked again in Farsi, "What do you want with us? Get off with you! Go away!" and took steps toward the intruder, brandishing his cane and backing him out into the parlor.
The intruder laughed, "Whoa there!..Parle vous?" he asked, easily defending himself with his arms.
"Sprechen sie? Tu Parle l'italiano? Vy ga-voriti po russki?"
"Motavajjeh nemisham! Get out of my house!" Erik began to shout and started tottering toward the gypsy, waving his cane.
"Try English!" called the other from the entry hall.
"Give me that thing, old man!" The man grabbed Erik's cane to prevent being hit with it and asked him, "You speak the English?"
Erik looked at him dumbly, teetering uneasily until he was able to grab hold of a chair. "Darius!" he called, "Nadir!" (Wouldn't it be nice if they were actually within earshot? he thought.)
The intruder froze, looking around the room, until he realized that the old man was bluffing and no help would be forthcoming. He pushed the old man down into a chair, noticing a cloth wrapped around part of Erik's face. When he reached for it, Erik fended off his hand and winced as if he were in pain.
"What happened?" the intruder asked gesturing toward his face.
Erik pointed to the pot of water on the hearth, "Water…a-be garm!" and made the gesture of it splashing his face. "Abe garm!"
The intruder was about to reach for the cloth again when another man entered the room, half dragging two people dressed in elegant attire. They were both very fine looking and apparently aristocrats. "Let go of me!" the man spat out in French, appearing quite indignant and straightening his coat and jacket before reaching out for his companion. "And release her! I demand that you release us this moment, or you will pay with your life when my father finds you!"
Both men were now laughing at this uppity young peacock trying to intimidate them with idle threats. But Erik was paying more attention to his companion, an auburn-haired beauty who was far more composed than her companion. He appeared to be her younger brother, although their speech patterns were different. A traveling companion perhaps? But surely not a single woman traveling with an unattached male, and they were not married or espoused because she wore no ring, nor did he … a curiosity for sure. Erik pulled his eyes away from her and had a hard time disguising his revulsion when he saw the third member of the new arrivals. Javert! The very pig who had tortured him as a child in the gypsy camp. The very man who had raped him as a child, who had beat him, whipped him and humiliated him and put him on display for paying customers to mock and spit at: the man he thought he had killed all those years ago. Of all the people for him to run into now! At first sight of Javert he was filled with the same terror he'd felt as a child. That quickly passed into bitter anger at what Javert had done to him, but this finally turned to disgust as Erik realized that this creature was just a piggish bully who needed to be put in his place – in time. He worked hard to control his emotions so as not to give himself away.
The French dandy took a step forward as if to challenge the gypsies, but his companion held his arm, pulling him back, saying, "No Raoul. Not now. Let us see what they want." Her pronunciation was a bit skewed… was that Swedish he detected?
He stood and approached her, saying, "Goddag, Fröken. kärkommen förödmjuka hemåt." And reached out and brushed his lips across the back of her hand with a slight bow, the way he'd seen other men do.
The man she called 'Raoul' stepped forward as if to intervene but was restrained by Javert. "Hey! Let go of her! That's my fiancé!"
The woman looked in surprise at the old man. It had been a long time since anyone had spoken to her in Swedish. Well, other than her aunt who had accompanied them until these gypsies had left her tied up in that villa along with Raoul's man from England two days ago. She looked up and answered, "Tak fur det. Du tala svensk?"
Erik bowed slightly, ". Lite. Var försiktig av dessa män, dem är farligt." He told her with a welcoming smile.
She smiled so brightly he all but lost himself in her huge brown eyes before the gypsy named Constantino jerked him back to the chair. "Alright! Enough of that!"
"How dare you touch my fiancé! I ought to challenge you to satisfaction!" Erik ignored him, hiding his amusement at the antics of this foppish nobleman. He seemed to be no more than a boy pretending to be a man. How could she be his fiancé? What could she possibly see in him? Was she marrying him for his money? Why was it that some people placed so much importance on wealth? Come to think of it, I had also done so when I allowed Nadir to take me into Persia. 'All the wealth and prestige you can bear!' Nadir had told me. So I became a paid slave. And the difference between that and marrying for money was what?
"Hey! You! You got anything to eat in this place?" The question brought him back to the present and he looked up with a blank expression and shrugged his shoulders while shaking his head. "Motavajjeh nemisham."
One of the gypsies shook Erik by the shoulder and gestured that he wanted to eat. Erik smiled dumbly and got up, gesturing for the gypsy to follow him. He led him up the stairs to the second floor and to a trap door in the ceiling. "Up there? You want me to go up there?" asked the man, pointing up at the trap door. He didn't look very happy about climbing up to that door in the ceiling.
"Balé! Balé!" Erik answered pointing to a wobbly ladder leaning up against the wall. Erik had used a different ladder to climb up there, but had stored it behind a curtain so as to make it not so obvious that something of value was up there.
"You can't expect me to climb that thing?" He asked, taking hold of the ladder and shaking it gingerly.
"Balé! Balé!" Erik repeated, making a gesture of eating food.
The man carried the ladder over to the trap door and leaned it against the door frame, then timorously climbed up the ladder, one cautious step at a time. With each step, Erik watched the rickety old ladder, noting its weak points, wondering if the gypsy would even reach the trap door. Once there, the man gave the trap door a push and it flipped back into the space, but at the same time, the force he had exerted caused the ladder to collapse beneath his feet – with a little help from Erik pushing against the weakest points – and the man came crashing down. He tried to stand but Erik expertly snapped his neck with a blow that would leave no mark - and he pitched down the stairs to the main floor landing. The angle of his neck made it clear that he was dead. Erik acted horrified and sorrowful at the man's demise. Constantino came running, shouting, bending over the body of his companion, "What's going on here? What happened?"
Erik again gestured as if eating while pointing up to the open trap door to the attic. He picked up the pieces of the broken ladder and shrugged his shoulders.
"Crazy fool! Couldn't he see that this old ladder wouldn't support him? What's so urgent that he had to climb up there?" He looked at Erik who only nodded and grinned. "Is there food up there?" and he made a motion as if he were eating.
Erik nodded, saying, "Balé! Balé!" and pointed up toward the trap door.
He then tapped Constantino on the arm and showed him where the other ladder was concealed behind a curtain. Constantino picked up the ladder and tested it for soundness and determined it to be sturdy. When he positioned it under the open trap door, Erik gave him a big grin and nodded, "Balé! Balé!" (He was thinking how stupid these guys were to not check the soundness of the ladder before climbing on it!)
Constantino went up the ladder and Erik could hear him exclaim over finding such a treasure. He began throwing chunks of cured meats and the two grouse Erik had killed down to him. "Woo-hoo! Looks like we eat tonight!"
Erik continued to smile and nod his head, all the while thinking, If they devour all of this in one night, we will go hungry if we are trapped here for very long… Christina! He hurried down the steps, holding onto the handrail, while Constantino called from behind, "Hey! Where you going? Get back here and help me carry this stuff!"
Erik ignored him and doddered over to where Christina was sitting with Raoul. She seemed to be trying to ignore him while he prattled on about how wealthy his family was and how many castles and estates they owned, and so on.
"What do you want now, you old fool?" Raoul asked him. "Can't you see we're having a private conversation here?"
Erik paused a moment, thinking, "Who's the fool here? If you knew who I was you wouldn't dare speak to me like that. I could dispatch you before you knew what was happening, but since the lady seems to care for you, I won't."
In his halting Swedish he explained that they needed to save some of the food for the coming week.
"Oh, what does he want now?" and he gave Erik a shove, causing Erik to take a step back. Erik tensed and his eyes flashed but only Christine noticed. "Go away! Leave us alone."
"Raoul, wait. This is important. And it is his home, after all."
"That may be but it's our prison for the time being – his too, for that matter - until we can find a way out of this God-forsaken place!"
Christine had been watching Erik's eyes as he took in the discussion between herself and Raoul and thought, He knows what we're saying! He pretends not to, but he understands. Wonder what else he knows? He pretends to be simple-minded, but I can see the intelligence in his eyes, and he only speaks that odd language and some Swedish. What sort of connection would there be between Swedish and that language that the gypsies cannot understand? And why that cloth wrapped around his face? I need to speak with him – alone. Raoul may not care who this man is, but I do.
"I'm sorry, what were you saying again?" she asked Erik.
Erik told her that the gypsies had found his food cache and were planning on having a feast tonight, but they needed to conserve some of the foodstuffs. They had no idea how long they would be there and needed to ration their supplies.
The gypsies grabbed Raoul and pushed and prodded him up to the landing to help carry the food downstairs while Christina interpreted Erik's message to Javert and Constantino. While they were distracted, Erik went back up the stairs and busied himself stuffing the dumbwaiter with the bundles of meat.
"O.K." said Javert. "We take one of those bundles each night and make stew. Are there fixings for stew?"
"We found some stuff in the cellar that might work," said Constantino. ''
"Is there a way to get there from here?" asked Javert.
Christina asked Erik and he nodded, smiling "Balé! Balé!"
Javert looked around for the bundles of meat that had apparently disappeared. "Where'd they all go?"
Erik thought, "Javert would make an easy target for some of my sleight-of-hand tricks!" And he tucked away the thought for future consideration.
"It's all in the dumbwaiter basket to take it downstairs," explained Christina. " We can take what we'll use for tonight and send the rest to the basement, then load up the vegetables we need from down there and send them up to the kitchen. "
As she started toward the stairs, Javert pulled her toward him, "She's a smart one, this one is. How did someone like you get hooked up with someone as useless as he is, eh?"
Raoul had been watching from the sidelines becoming more and more agitated as things progressed. "That's enough, Christina. Don't you think you have helped them enough? Let them sort out how they are to eat. It's none of our business and I don't want my future wife getting involved with aiding these filthy animals!"
Javert let go of Christina and turned on him, "Filthy?! My dear …" (he snorted) "… gentleman … if we had toiletries and bathing facilities at our disposal, perhaps we could perfume ourselves much as you do, but the wilderness in which we are forced to make our home affords no such niceties. Now, if you would like to experience our lifestyle for awhile, feel free to share the stable with the horses and the chickens!" With that he shoved a sack of nuts that had been curing in the attic at Raoul. "Here. Take those down to the kitchen," and pushed him toward the stairs ahead of him.
Erik had to turn and busy himself with tugging at the ropes to lower the dumbwaiter in order to keep from laughing out loud at Raoul's indignant expression.
Christina started down the steps, heading for the cellar door. "I'd like to see what's in the cellar," announced Christina. "If we're going to be stuck here for awhile, I'd like to know what we have to work with for meals."
"Christina! How can you debase yourself in this way? You are soon to be the wife of a nobleman, a Vicomtesse! A Vicomtesse does not act like this!" Javert was about to shut him up when Christina intervened.
She had had enough of Raoul's contrary behavior. She had hoped that he would see that co-operating would help things to run more smoothly. Instead Raoul seemed intent on getting them tied up and gagged for the duration. "Raoul, even a Vicomtesse will do whatever is needed to keep herself and her loved ones alive – as you should also!"
"Go get some wood," Javert commanded.
Raoul looked around the room from the easy chair he had occupied, looking at each person – they were all looking at him, some rather smugly. As the reality of the request dawned on him, "ME? You expect ME to carry wood?"
Javert made a move toward him threateningly, "Yes I do! And I expect you to haul in enough water for baths!"
Raoul leaned back with a thin chuckle and crossed his legs, "You've lost your mind! Let the old man do it… it's his house!"
Christina was on her way down the cellar stairs and turned around to face her fiancé, "Oh, for pity's sake, Raoul, grow up! These are things that we all need. It's only fair that you do your share of the work and help us!"
Javert reached out and took Raoul by the sleeve, dragging him toward the kitchen and the woodhouse door. "NOW!"
"I'll have you know that my family can trace its lineage back to Charlemagne in the 8th century," Raoul postulated, straightening his coat. "In fact, Mother has told me that the name 'Chagny' is a shortened form of the name Charlemagne."
And Erik thought to himself, And I can trace mine back to Eirik den Rod in the tenth century. So what? Rulers and nobles back then had many illegitimate offspring. And there was much inbreeding among the nobility, giving rise to all sorts of aberrations, such as cowardice.
"And what have you done since then but to live off the backs of the people you are supposed to be taking care of? It's time you started earning your keep!" said Javert threatening him.
Erik had come down from the second floor and opened the dumbwaiter's doors in the kitchen. He looked at Christina and shook his head, telling her in Swedish, "Such beautiful clothing! Wouldn't you like something more befitting the work you will be doing? It would be a shame to spoil such costly attire."
She looked down at her pale blue satiny dress and answered, "That would be so kind of you, Sir! Yes I would! And could you find some for Raoul as well?"
Erik nodded, "Balé, I will see. Maybe he can use some of my own things?"
Javert turned around and glared at Erik and then Christina. Something about that old man kept niggling at him, but he didn't know what. Maybe it was just the idea of being trapped here."What's this? What are you two talking about now?"
"The gentleman just offered to find some more appropriate attire for myself and my fiancé," Christina told Constantino.
"WHAT?" Raoul exploded and turned back from the woodhouse door he was about to open. "I will certainly NOT wear someone else's cast-off clothing! This suit was tailored by Henry Poole of London! I refuse to wear anything of lesser craftsmanship!"
"Suit yourself then. Mademoiselle, you can tell the old man to go ahead and find you some simpler clothing to wear."
She told Erik and was surprised when he pulled her along toward the upstairs bedrooms. They stopped on the stairs and he told her, in Swedish of course, "I need to see what size you wear, see which ones will fit you best." When she hesitated, he added, "You do not fear for your virtue with an old codger like me, I hope?"
She looked at him, with a bit of a question in her eyes before shaking her head, "No, of course not," and continued to follow him up the stairs, wondering to herself, "What is it about this man? Why am I drawn to him? I am engaged to be wed to the only son of the Comte de Chagny! I should only have eyes for him – I HAVE only had eyes for him since my childhood. I need to get a tighter hold on my feelings. I am no longer a child who can allow her feelings to run willy-nilly for the first man to do a simple kindness for me. What would father think? Yet this man is educated beyond even Raoul. He speaks at least French, Swedish, English, the language of the gypsies and whatever language it is that he is using. He is very brave to be defying both the gypsies and in a more subtle way, Raoul. Yet this doesn't seem to be his own home, so he is at best a traveler, perhaps a vagabond as well, maybe even a secret gendarme searching for outlaws like the men who are holding us? Perhaps he is a nobleman who simply got lost in the storm? I need to ask him some questions…. but will he answer them?"
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TRANSLATIONS:
Parle vous – Do you speak French? (in French)
"Sprechen sie?" – Do you speak German (in German)
Tu Parle l'italiano – Do you speak Italian? (in Italian)
Vy ga-voriti po russki – Do you speak Russian (in Russian)
Motavajjeh nemisham – I don't understand you (in Farsi)
a-be garm – hot water (in Farsi)
"Goddag, Fröken. kärkommenförödmjukahemåt." Hello, young lady, Welcome to my humble home.(in Swedish)
"Tak fur det. Du tala svensk?" Thank you. You speak Swedish? (in Swedish)
"Lite.Varförsiktigavdessamän,demärfarligt – A little bit. Be very careful of these men, They are dangerous (in Swedish)
Motavajjeh nemisham." – I don't understand you (in Farsi)
Balé – Yes (in Farsi)
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