October 16, 1884
(8:00 am)
"Where the hell were you yesterday?" Her mother inquired with that tone that meant she was on the verge of screaming. "I raised you better than to sleep with one of your patrons!"
Ilona sat at the breakfast table in her and her mother's shared apartment above the whore house, barely managing to keep her head up as last night had proved to be a difficult night for sleep. She would not dare sleep with one of the patrons of the opera. She was a virgin, shocking to say the least of the daughter of a whore, but it was true, she had never been with a man in any way.
She could be called one of the most virtuous women in the Paris Opera House. Ilona believed in waiting until one was truly in love with a person before hopping into bed with them, love comes first. She supposed she was a foolish romantic in that sense, waiting until she found her true love before giving herself wholly to that person.
Her mother would just pat her on the head and tell her she is a sweet little girl. Nadir would proclaim her a saint amongst the filth that avenged the opera house. She dared not imagine what her father would think, the man would either go into a catatonic state or worse not believe her and murder whoever he thought she had slept with.
Thinking of her father in any sense made her just want to bury herself back into bed. He would surely have left her notes in her dressing room by now waiting to be opened when she finally forced herself to go to rehearsal. What if he was waiting for her in her dressing room right now? He'd probably cry whilst begging her for forgiveness over his silly actions... Or he wouldn't remember his belligerent state and just go about his usual critiques of her performance.
If she were a foolish girl she would have him condemned to an asylum, but she was no fool. She knew very well what would happen if she sent him there. Those animals would have a time with degrading him, making him their little show piece. No, she would not have her papa in an asylum. She would have him at home with her.
If only.
"Rehearsal ran late on Thursday," Ilona began, doing her best to sound sincere. "I felt far too tired to be making the journey back home in the middle of the night, so I slept in my dressing room. I slept past noon yesterday and I had rehearsal at one o'clock. I could not just grab a coach and head here for five minutes to explain my absence, instead, I stayed and hoped you would not deem me a whore."
Her mother's lips drew thin. She knew Ilona was lying, but now she was making the decision to ask if she was with her father or not? Her mother was a smart woman, how else could she single-handily manage a whore house and raise a rising prima donna. Now came the time to see her decision, opening her mouth as if to speak her mother shut it again quickly.
Ilona said nothing, just focused once more on staying awake. The smell of ham and eggs filled the room as her mother went back to cooking breakfast.
"I can't understand you sometimes Ilona." Her mother muttered.
"I'm sorry," Ilona said.
"It's not your fault." Her mother said approaching the table with fresh eggs on a plate. "If it's anyone's fault it's mine."
Spooning out the eggs onto Ilona's plate, her mother patted her head as she had done when she was small. Ilona took the first bite of the eggs, always too salty. Her mother said it was because she was too French for her own good, instead of being a strong American woman like her. Apparently, that meant that she had to like a tablespoon of salt doused on her eggs.
"I should have just kept you to myself." Her mother said taking a mouthful of ham and egg in.
"I'm glad you didn't," Ilona admitted, not only to her mother but reaffirming her own thoughts. "Music is my life, without papa I fear I would never have truly grown into the woman I am now. Imagine me without my music? You can't can you? Imagine the world with me in it without the knowledge and tutelage I have now?"
Her mother did not say another word to her before Ilona left for rehearsals. It was best left unsaid if she had anything to say. Ilona loved her mother dearly, she loved her mother more than she would ever love her father. But just because she loved her mother more did not mean that her father did not hold a special place in the heart. And she would defend that man, while criticizing him, to her death. He was her papa, and through his flaws she still loved him.
They ate their breakfast in silence. Ilona not daring to say anything that would get a rise out of her mother. She would rather not have a long drawn out argument.
A knock at the door sounded as Ilona began to wash her breakfast plate in the sink. Her mother got up from her seat to get the door. It was probably one of her girls coming to bring in last night's earnings report. Typically the girls brought in an average of 5,000 francs a night, sometimes more, sometimes less, it depended on upon who was in town for the girl's services. Ilona knew very well that they always had an influx in customers after any premiere at the opera.
"Monsieur Khan?" Her mother said in what was a hopefully pleasant shock.
"May I come in Madame?" Nadir asked bowing slightly at the woman still dressed in her night clothes.
"Nadir!" Ilona called from the kitchen looking towards the side entrance to their apartment.
She has dressed already, she could receive her guest much better than her mother could. Her day dress was a silk and velvet blue bustle with a floral design steaming from the bodice to the front of the skirt. It had been a gift from Monsieur Khan himself. He had always been so very kind to her, always presenting her with gifts and tales of his homeland. Often when her mother was not around and she was not permitted around her father, she stayed with Monsieur Khan.
He had been a second father to her, more so a father to her than her actual father truly. It wasn't her own father's fault that Nadir had taken the role of the father over for her, he was just too unstable to be around children. Even now her father struggled to be around her for too long, as evidence of what had happened the day before.
Nadir met her in an embrace in the dining room. He smelled of his usual cigars and coffee. He still had on his coat as she smiled led him into the living room where they could sit and chat. She could never understand how that man could possibly be cold in sixty-degree temperatures, he'd lived in Paris since the early-60s, had the man not grown used to the climate of Paris? Her mother had and she lived in just as warm temperatures in Charleston.
She took his coat and placed it delicately on an empty chair to remind herself that she needed to put it away when their conversation came to a close. Nadir had sat himself down on the recently upholstered pink couch, he looked ridiculous on the pink monstrosity that was the new fabric that her mother had selected for the couch. She took a seat beside him doing her best to not mention how silly he looked next to pink.
"What brings you here?" Ilona asked still smiling as Nadir finally seemed to notice the new couch fabric. "Are you going to be attending the show tonight? I know you can't possibly attend every opera I'm in but I would love to have you at least one."
Nadir kept smiling and nodded his head. "Of course I will be watching tonight."
"Wonderful!" Ilona said clapping her hands. "Where will you be sitting? Did you say your name to Thomas at the ticket office? I've got a deal with the managers now where if you or mother would like to see a show you can get 50% off your cost of admission or upgraded seats. Oh! I forgot to ask you if you wanted tea."
"I'll be sitting in row C this evening, towards the center," He mentioned whilst Ilona had already gone back to the kitchen to put a kettle on the stove. "Do you perhaps have any Jasmine?"
"Oh yes," Ilona said looking through the box of tea packets she had on hand. "Would you like it green tea based or black?"
Her mother came in from behind her, nearly causing in Ilona to drop the bag of dried tea leaves and jasmine petals onto the floor. "I'm needed downstairs." She said plainly. "Please let me know when you're leaving."
"I will." Ilona sighed as her mother pulled her in for a hug.
Her mother went back to her bedroom to dress and ready herself for whatever her girls had to tell her. She was a kind mother, and a compassionate businesswoman, but sometimes she really could be a tyrant. Ilona had not personally seen her mother react in such rage since she was a child, but she knew just from hearing the whores downstairs that her mother went off on a trade at least once a month.
Ilona could only hope she would not be on the other end of one anytime soon. She counted herself amongst the luckiest stars this morning for avoiding her mother's condemnation at breakfast.
With the water boiled Ilona took the kettle off the stove carefully before placing it and two tea cups on the silver tea platter. She was a good hostess, or at least she did her best. Nadir would hardly care if she had forgotten or not, he was not near as strict as her mother would have been about her poor manners. Nadir himself, was still not proficient in Parisian etiquette.
"We are apparently out of white tea," Ilona said setting the platter down on the coffee table, just within reach of herself to begin the process of fixing it. "I hope you won't mind a green tea base."
"I don't wish to beat around the bush about this Ilona," Nadir said, moving cautiously on his metaphor as if he thought he was using it incorrectly. "But I spoke to your father last night."
Ilona bit her lip as she poured the hot water over the bag of dried leaves and flowers. Nadir never was one to "beat around the bush" about her father, even when she was younger and she was told of some of the horrors that he had committed at the opera house, he had chatted with her pleasantly before telling her of the crime. Granted she received the very censored version of the chaos her father unleashed at her school and place of employment.
"He tore apart his study once again," Nadir explained. "I found him intoxicated off what I can only assume was morphine sobbing over his torn sheet music. I did my best with getting him to explain what had gone wrong and I got nothing but the babble of you storming off and leaving him forever."
Ilona stopped her stirring and sighed deeply. She was going to be late for rehearsal. She could always use the excuse of sleeping too late... Probably not. If she were more of a fool she could always say that she had family matters to attend to. She was not that much a fool.
Hearing the front door shut signaling her mother had left the house leaving Ilona and Nadir to themselves, she could finally open up about what had happened.
"I had come down for my usual lesson." Ilona began placing her tea down knowing very well she was not going to be sipping tea easily with Nadir this morning. "It had all gone fine. I was very tired. He told me that I lack passion and began to try to pull mother into the argument. I did my best to remind him it was my fault. And I was foolish enough to tell him that I wanted to purchase an apartment so he and I could live together above ground.
"He dismissed it entirely and I just asked him to play that piece, you know the one he composed just for me?" Nadir nodded and Ilona continued. "I fell asleep, it had been a long day of rehearsals and I could hardly keep myself from nodding off. When I awoke I was in the Louis-Philippe room, I was tucked in like he used to do for when I took naps in the room. I had a stupid thought cross my mind that he wanted me to live with him in the cellars and that if he wanted to live with me then he might want a chance to live above ground with me.
"I was a fool enough to even put on a dress that I'd found in the wardrobe I'd thought to be mine. When I tried to find him after leaving the room, he asked me why I was wearing the dress. And I told him because it was my room and therefore my dress, he lashed out, saying it wasn't my dress or my room. He... He took off his mask thinking I'd never seen his face before, thinking for some reason that I would be frightened."
Ilona quickly wiped the tears welling up in her eyes as she recalled her father's madness once more. She was crying over nothing truly, he had always been like this, so two sided, so moody, and just not sane. She knew better than to cry over nothing. She knew better, she was a big girl and she was crying over her papa not wanting to be with her like an idiotic child.
Nadir took her hand in his letting her know he was there and willing to listen. He knew what she felt, not that he could feel like he was losing his father to the illness of the mind. He just knew what it was like to see a friend fall into this fit, had her father ever been sane, though? No, not from the stories Nadir had often told her of their time in Persia. He had always been mad and it seemed as he grew older the madness grew as well.
How she prayed he would not live long enough for the disease to destroy his mind completely. Could she really wish her father dead? No, it was cruel. It was beyond cruel it was, it was unnatural to wish a parent dead. No matter their suffering a child had a right to see their parents through to the end, not wish for a premature death.
"He kept raving about Hades keeping Persephone in a world of darkness while she begged for her mother. And I had been stupid enough to continue to tell him of my plans. I had this whole idea in my head, it would be perfect for him, a fine apartment somewhere near the opera house. A room big enough for his instruments, a living room with a piano in the center, and access to a park so we could take walks on Sundays.
"He wouldn't listen, though. Of course, he wouldn't, not in that state, not in any state." Ilona wept now sitting beside Nadir for comfort. "He told me he wanted a normal life. A home to fill with music and a family that loved him. And he just dismissed it all together whilst saying he was such a monster he did not deserve the kindness I gave him. He ordered me gone before I even finished breakfast." Ilona sighed and looked to Nadir with tears now just in her eyes, her face with a smile at the thought of her papa being happy.
Nadir held her close as if she were still the little girl he had helped raise. She was sure in his eyes she was still that little girl that craved the stories of Persia and the candies that always seemed to fill his pockets. In this moment, she didn't need to be treated like an adult, she was a child. And she had acted like a child not only in front of her father, mother but now Nadir as well. She was just a foolish little girl.
"I want him to be happy," Ilona mumbled. "Is that too much to ask?"
"No," Nadir said kissing her forehead. "It's not. And he is sulking in that cellar right now sobbing over his mistake. He even kept mumbling about missing lessons and being a poor angel."
"An angel?" Ilona giggled slightly. "He calls himself a monster yesterday and today he is an angel."
"I'm sure he was speaking of you," Nadir said with a friendly smile on his face at Ilona's attempt at humor. "You are quite the angel on stage. I still remember your first time on stage in The Magic Flute. You were one of those spirits that lead Tamino to the temple, and all you did was stare out into the audience. I thought Erik was going to blow a gasket in his seat, instead, you shocked us both when you finally got your footing back and sang your little heart out."
Ilona remembered that performance very well. Her mother, father, and Nadir had sat in her father's usual box 5 to watch her premiere at age eight in The Magic Flute. She had been one of the three child-spirits that were really just there to look cute and guide Tamino. She could still remember those warm stage lights hitting her face for the first time in rehearsals thinking she would be fine... Instead, when she first stepped out on stage in front of a live audience she had frozen. Her father had given her a fairly long lecture on the importance of stage presence afterward. And yet he had been so proud of her he purchased her a new porcelain doll as congratulations.
The doll and the costume she had managed to steal away from the costume ladies now were in her bedroom. Her doll on her chest of other toys and her costume in her wardrobe. The doll had been a close companion of hers until her papa had given her the plush kitten toy for her tenth birthday. He had always gifted her with toys when she had done well on stage, up until she was sixteen she had received some sort of toy, now she got flowers and stern notes. Well, she had always been receiving the stern notes.
"I still remember Monsieur Fre saying 'fuck' so loud some of the audience heard." Ilona laughed.
(10:00 pm)
"You were perfect Ilona," Nadir complimented the young diva as she welcomed him into her dressing room, filled with flowers and notes of admiration. "I don't think I've quite enjoyed myself nearly as much as watching you perform."
Ilona smiled as she took Nadir's bouquet of Gladiolus, Iris, white and red roses, and a single pink lotus. He knew she was very fond of the lilies and lotus flowers. He would order her a cake made from her favorite bakery decorated with a sugar lotus' adorning the vanilla icing. Nadir would often speak of the lotus gardens of Persia and Ilona longed to visit the seemingly mythical homeland of her second father.
She sniffed the bouquet making sure to make a show of placing them on her make-up table above all the other flowers sent by her admirers and patrons. Nadir allowed her to embrace him in a tight hug. He told her how beautiful she was on stage and how proud he was of her for her success, though she was certain if she began screaming like La Carlotta he would surely say the same.
"I'm so glad you enjoyed it," Ilona said with a bright smile as she took off her hideous wig. "I was falling flat by the end and I was almost certain everyone was staring at just me."
"You know hardly half of those people can read a single line of music." Nadir comforted her with as he always did when she told him she had made a mistake that he had not noticed. "I myself didn't notice anything."
Ilona looked to her make-up table once more to check for a note from her home. As soon as she spotted the familiar white rose with a single red petal she found the note. The note was in the familiar letterhead of a red skull along with a black outlined parchment paper her father probably spent 100 francs a month on supplying. He was a materialistic man to no end. Then again how else was he going to spend 20,000 francs a month?
"Oh, you didn't," Ilona said holding a familiar letterhead in her hand. "But he did."
Retrieving her letter opener she sliced through the red skull, getting to the neat calligraphy of her father's handwriting before she could place the envelope down. Nadir went to retrieving the letter from Ilona before she could even look into what her father had to say. Ilona knew very well what he would try to do and kept the letter well out of reach of the Persian policeman.
"Ilona. The first act was as skillfully marvelous as what I expect of you, dare I say you were nearly perfect? You were dreadfully flat in the final chorus. Your presence on stage in the second act, in general, was less than a declaration of a marquise but that of a peasant girl tending her flock. Your presence on stage from then was dreadful and more rehearsal time and less fraternizing with your lover will do you well. I am certain you know of this already. You are a good girl and should know what is more important than a mindless banker. Forever yours, Erik." Ilona read aloud making sure to mock her father when reading of his critiques of her work.
Ilona handed the letter to Nadir giving him the option of what he wanted to do with it since she was done. She knew very well she was only flat in act 2 because she was not as into the show as she should have been. She had been foolish, thinking of what he thought of her. She knew what he thought of her, he was probably blubbering to himself whilst watching her performance. And then she ruins everything by just worrying about something he would tear apart anyway.
She could only look forward to when they finally meet face to mask. He would certainly have many choice words to describe her "poor" performance and her lover the banker. It was for the best he tore apart her work rather than on the clueless Léon.
"You have a lover?" Nadir asked with something a mix of rage and worry mixed upon his face.
"No!" Ilona nearly shouted. "I do not, nor will I ever, have a lover. You know how he gets when I am around others? He sees me as a friend and thinks we are lovers."
Nadir physically seemed calmer as she made the clear note that she did not have a lover. He's already tan skin seemed to get a shade darker and redder before she could explain to him what truly was going on. He looked as if he were going to go down to her father's lair and kill Léon with her father as accompaniment. Imagine that sight... She preferred not to.
"You seemed friendly enough with the boy at dinner." Her father's voice suddenly rang out from the seemingly the ceiling. "Daroga, you about looked like you were going to strangle the boy. Hardly something a good policeman should do n't you think?"
"Erik!" Nadir called.
"Papa!" Ilona mumbled.
"Show yourself!"
"But why should I?" Her father said in a sing-song voice. "You don't seem to want Erik around anymore. You leave your poor father in his lair all alone and don't make an effort to check on him yourself? That's rather cruel don't you think my dear?"
Ilona was not about to let his madness get the better of her. He was going through on of his fits of rage, if she challenged him now it would only make his fit of tears later worse. His mood would shift soon, hopefully by the time she managed to get both of her father and Nadir out of her dressing room. Her costume was getting hotter and uncomfortable by the second.
"Be kind, Erik!" Nadir tread lightly in the water of ordering her father to do something.
Nadir had survived her father for well over two decades, if he had not been on the end of a rope by now her father did enjoy his company. Would he admit it? Of course not, but the two were as close as friends could be when it came to bickering over nothing and everything.
"Erik is being kind!" Her father shouted. "Erik is the kindest father he can be. You taught him well Daroga. He gives his daughter everything and yet she still disobeys his requests! And she does not even care to do her part to tell him when she purposefully destroys a perfect performance."
She had not done it on purpose. If anything it was his fault for not bothering to talk to her like a normal human being. She knew very well her father would never be a normal human being, but he could try. He thought of himself as a "monster", a "freak", a "demon, "the devil, and even an "angel", the definition of humanity could never be applied to him.
An angel. She found herself nearly giggling over her father calling himself an angel. She had heard her mother whisper about her father being the "angel of death", but the way Nadir had described it it was as if he believed himself an angel. Or perhaps he was beginning to see angels? What sort of angels would her father be seeing? An angel of death or an angel of music?
Cheesy last sentence is cheesy!
