As ever, my humblest thanks to all who have so kindly given me such encouraging feedback! My thanks as well to the reviewer who let me know that the love-scene in my last chapter was rather annoying. I appreciate the criticism, and I will bear it in mind as I continue this story. I may even rewrite that bit! Seriously – if something falls flat, you do me a great favour if you let me know about it. I´m here to learn.
I do not own POTO, or its characters.
As she walked through the parking lot at Jeanne Guiry´s apartment complex, Christine looked over her shoulder. There he is! Nadir was following her at a distance, and he hesitated as he realized that she had seen him.
She had been worried that Erik would dismiss or even kill Nadir, but her fears had turned out to be completely unfounded. Though Nadir no longer frequented the house during the days which had followed his revelations to her, he continued to follow her, more or less discreetly, whenever she went out unaccompanied by Erik. He had made no move to approach her or converse with her again. Once, her concern and curiosity had compelled Christine to approach him, but Nadir had moved in the other direction, quickly disappearing from her sight. The message had been clear.
"Mr. Karrubi will continue to protect you," Erik had told Christine when she had dared to ask about Nadir´s status. He had refused to discuss the subject further. So many forbidden subjects! There was a tacit understanding between Erik and Christine: all discussion of his past was verboten. Christine admitted to herself that, even if Erik had chosen to be open with her, she would never have trusted his explanations. She simply could not trust Erik.
Now, Christine found herself coming to Jeanne Guiry for answers.
"You are beginning to get fat," said Meg´s voice, and Christine turned to watch as she slammed her car door. She was carrying a brown paper bag with something bulky inside.
"Thanks," said Christine dryly, glancing down at her own midriff. "I really need to go shopping for maternity clothes, I guess. What´s in the bag?"
Meg opened the bag and tipped it toward her so she could view its contents.
"A little liquid persuasion…"
"But, Meg! That´s –"
"Look, Christine, you want answers from my mom? She shuts up tighter than a clam until she´s three sheets to the wind. I´m serious! You just leave this to me, okay? Don´t start asking questions until I do."
"I can´t do this to your mom…"
"Really? What´s wrong, Christine? Do you remember her as the supermom who gave us cookies when we were smaller? Maybe you should think about her as the woman who fixed you up with your dear hubby. I know a little something about that, you know. All those times Erik found you, when you were a student? All those accidental meetings, all the times you were alone and he approached you? Who do you think arranged all that? And, believe me, it wasn´t your welfare she was thinking about."
Christine was silent and looked at Meg miserably. The pieces of some grand puzzle seemed to be falling gradually into place; her life had been everyone´s plaything, it seemed.
"You didn´t tell me," she mumbled.
"I thought about telling you, but it was only a suspicion at first. By the time I knew for sure, I was dating Jack and worried that you were taking him away from me," Meg said candidly.
"You really thought that?" said Christine. How could I have been so blind? "Do you still think that?"
"Of course not, dimbulb!" snorted Meg. "I wouldn´t be telling you this now if I did, would I? And I know how you feel about your husband, anyway, and you know what?"
"What?"
"I feel sorry for you."
A thousand different protests sprang to Christine´s mind, but she was silent as they crossed the parking lot and ascended the stairway to Jeanne´s apartment door.
Nearby, Nadir lounged in the shadows, silent and watchful.
"Are you going to tell me who that man was who answered your phone the other day?" Jeanne Guiry finally asked the question directly. She had been hinting and fishing for the answer to this question for the past two hours, and Meg had parried her very effectively. Christine glanced at Jeanne´s glass. Her third whiskey sour, and she´s dropped all pretence of watering it down. She holds her liquor remarkably well.
Meg had very companionably poured some whisky into her own Coke and often made as if to drink it, but she had been nursing the same drink since her arrival. Nonetheless, she had successfully carried off the illusion that she was drinking, too.
"The man who answered my phone…" Meg said slowly, then broke into seemingly drunken giggles.
Christine looked at her, amazed. She´s a fantastic actress!
Jeanne leaned forward in her chair optimistically, her eyes fixed on her daughter.
"Was that a man?" Meg chortled, then suddenly seemed sober. "Tell Mom who it was, Christine!"
Christine looked at her friend in amazement, then turned to Jeanne.
"Well, that would have been Raoul. You remember Raoul? You know, the guy I dated when Meg and I went to high school?"
Jeanne nearly dropped her glass. "He´s staying with you, Meg? Please tell me he´s not!"
"Of course he is, Mom! What kind of a friend would I be if I didn´t put him up?"
"Put him up to what, Meg? What´s he doing in this city?"
"Visiting, of course. Why? Is there some reason he shouldn´t be here?"
"You know perfectly well!" said Jeanne.
"Whadda I know?"
"Erik!" hissed Jeanne.
There was a silence during which Meg fell off her chair and sat on the floor, scratching her head. Her drink remained in her hand, miraculously unspilled.
"So...? What could you know about Erik?" snorted Meg.
There was another silence, and the question hung in the air. Christine marvelled at Meg´s skill at manipulating the situation. It remained to be seen whether Jeanne would take the bait…
"Everything!" Jeanne said, and she straightened up, pride and indignation on her countenance.
The clock chimed, and Meg and Christine leaned forward slightly, waiting.
"Well, hello, sailor!" said Ashley as she approached Nadir. He was leaning against the wall, watching Jeanne´s apartment door as if expecting someone to emerge at any moment. He directed a poisonous glance at Ashley and said nothing.
"Not very nice manners," Ashley observed. "You sure don´t like me, do you?"
The familiar question caused Nadir to turn and stare at Ashley in open hostility. How could two women who were such polar opposites tell him the exact same thing? It was strange; before he had known Christine, he had thought all women were the same. After that, it might have been easy to fall into the fallacy that all women were like Christine. Ashley had handily disabused him of that notion.
"What are you doing here?" asked Nadir, without bothering to veil his hostility.
"Everybody has to be somewhere. Why not here? Why not now? I just wanted to let you know that the boys and I really care about you. We´re keeping an eye on you, you know." Ashley´s voice was a seductive, contralto purr. She pulled a cigarette out of her purse. "Got a light? No? Well, I didn´t think you would." She produced a lighter and leaned against the wall, enjoying her cigarette. Her knit top revealed an ample bosom, and her tight jeans outlined the rest of an enviable figure. She stared at Nadir, her dark eyes calculating.
"Well, you may not like me, but your friend Raoul sure does," she murmured.
Nadir´s eyes flew to her face. "Raoul De Chagny? You know Raoul De Chagny?"
"Know him? We´ve gotten to know each other really well, I´d say. I´ve been spending my evenings at Meg´s apartment lately. We´re both worried about dear little Christine, it seems. We both want to help her escape from her ogre of a husband…"
"Why are you involving De Chagny?"
"Why not? Both he and Meg could help Christine make up her mind, you know. I can´t do this alone, and you´re not cooperating much. Are you still so terrified of your boss?"
Nadir offered only a hostile glare in answer to her question.
"He won´t know a thing until it´s too late. You always hated him, didn´t you? I wonder about you, honey…I get the feeling that the only person you care about in the world is Christine."
Nadir remained silent, but Ashley scrutinized him for a long time before she finally turned on her heel and left.
The door to the living room was open, and Christine tiptoed down the hallway, hoping that Erik would not notice that she had returned. The conversation with Jeanne had left her shaken and exhausted. How can I begin to face him now?
"Erik´s mother hated him, you know. She was addicted to heroin, and his facial deformity was like a constant reproach to her. Deep down, she blamed herself for it. If only she had not needed her fix …Music was Erik´s only true friend, and became an obsession and means of escape for him. Then, something terrible happened. When Erik was 16, she was shot dead – a drug deal had gone bad. Erik blamed himself for not being able to save her…but he did succeed in finishing off the ones who had killed her. He was familiar with the underworld by then, friendless though he was, and he had learned a thing or two. He was already frightening…"
Christine crept past the open living-room door, her shoes in her hand to muffle her footsteps. A glance inside revealed Erik´s back. He was in shirtsleeves, absorbed in his work, his suit-coat carelessly slung over the arm of his chair.
"He left this city, his birthplace, and he left the country. You did not know that he was born here? What did you think? That Erik is perhaps European? No, though he spent his entire youth abroad. He had resolved not to come back unless his return was in some way… triumphant. Yes, that is the word. He had always been interested in chemistry, particularly in pharmaceuticals, and he earned his doctorate while doing…odd jobs. He became associated with unsavoury organizations in various countries and cultivated dubious alliances. He learned the art of silent, bloodless killing and often earned his bread that way. Then it occurred to him to extract information from his victims through the creative use of pharmaceuticals. Did I mention that he had learned elements of hypnosis and illusion? He became very valuable to the governments which hired him. Later, they would deny any knowledge of his existence…"
As she continued past the door and down the hallway, Christine began to breathe again. He had not heard her. She continued towards the kitchen.
"He returned to this city after a rather shadowy business involving the murder of a diplomat in Iran. For some reason, he remembered me – I had been a friend of his mother´s, before she became addicted, you know. I had visited once or twice afterwards, and it had always been depressing. At any rate, he remembered me, and for some reason wished to be remembered. He had done well for himself – he had amassed a fortune over the years. He saw that I was in dire straits – I had been in the accident which crushed my ankle only a year before, and I was in debt and jobless, and I had you to look after, Meg. He offered me a job – two jobs, really. You know that I instruct dance at the university, but you do not know of my other, secret work…"
Christine put a kettle on the stove and searched the cabinet for teabags. She finally located rosehip teabags behind a package of noodles.
"Erik worked for several insurance companies, you know, besides his work at the university. He was a loss adjustor! Does it sound pedestrian? He often laughed about his assumed job title. Yes, he saved the insurance companies money. He would 'investigate' high-end thefts – art, jewelry, certain collectibles… He always recovered the stolen items. His connections with the underworld and his talent for making people talk yielded him a success rate just below 100% -- well, it would have been 100% if he hadn´t been appropriating certain choice pieces of each cache. The insurance companies were so delighted with the money that he saved them that they looked the other way, even when he had to kill to recover the goods. Often, he would simply expose fraudulent claims. Yes, they were very happy with him! They paid him well, but it was the art and jewelry which really attracted him, I think. My job was simple – I was a glorified lookout and getaway driver, but that was ridiculous. Everything Erik did was so well planned and executed that there was really no need for me. I was grateful that I never had to see him work. He always worked alone, you see. He had his secrets. Tell me, Christine – did Erik ever hang that Bretelmann that he acquired? I won´t tell you how he got that one…"
The Bretelmann landscape, a late-Renaissance "Flight into Egypt," was hanging in the living room. "One of the few nocturnal landscapes of that period," Erik had commented. "Note the use of starlight and constellations, the sense of direction and purpose it gives to the flight of the Holy Family…"
Flight.
The kettle began to whistle, and Christine poured the boiling water into her cup, watching as fragrant tendrils of steam began to curl upwards.
"Then he saw you for the first time, Christine, and everything changed. He had arrived at the Fine Arts building to meet with me and discuss that night´s …assignment. He had always had a great amount of artistic curiosity, you know, and he slipped into a recital hall to see what was going on. And there you were! When I met him that afternoon, he was trembling …absolutely trembling! He was silent – he did not say a word at first, then he simply told me, 'It´s off.' He handed me his knife as though surrendering it to someone in authority, and he left. After that, there were no more killings, no more 'loss adjusting.' He simply watched you and watched you, and months passed before he finally arranged an introduction. By then he was ravenous for you. He considered it great good luck and an encouraging sign that I knew you – he became nearly superstitious, as obsessed as he was! I expected it to fade. Well, it didn´t. He would call me in the middle of the night and ask questions about you, Christine. He was beside himself. The nature of his research, and his secrecy, had awakened curiosity, and he had enemies. He was afraid to show the world his interest in you, and I was the only person who knew – I was his only confidante. He tried to get over you, Christine. He really tried, but he became self-destructive during the times he was away from you. Do you know what he did once? He somehow stole a strand of your hair, and he took a needle and stitched it into his own flesh, right below the collarbone, to form a ring!"
Christine thought of a newly formed, circular scar she had seen on Erik´s chest. She shuddered and put three teaspoons of sugar into her tea instead of the habitual two.
"He wanted to be in your life, so he became your voice instructor, and you learned about the musical facet of his genius. He wanted to be everything to you, though. Your distress over your father worried him, and so he kept watch over him. Did you ever notice that your father never once seemed to be in pain? And as advanced and painful as his cancer was! Have you ever wondered about that, Christine?"
She stirred her tea thoughtfully, trying to push away an awful suspicion that had formed in her mind. Her father had been serene, almost happy, in those last days…
"You married him. He was happy – are you surprised? Nothing about Erik is ever clear, but I assure you that he was happy, and he knew it. You were clearly unhappy, but he considered that to be something temporary. Has he told you about his latest project, that bit of architecture which is dearest to his heart? No? Well, I won´t say anything, then…"
Architecture? Project?
There was a current of air, and Christine turned to see Erik near the doorway. He slouched gracefully against the wall. As always, he was watching her attentively. His arms were folded, and his shirtsleeves had been rolled up.
"How long have you been there?" she gasped, as she finally found her voice.
"These past fifteen minutes. You have been deep in thought," he observed.
"I´ve been making a cup of tea," she replied. "Would you like one?" She started to shuffle through the pantry in search of his black tea.
His hand on her arm stopped her gently, and he closed the cabinet door and pressed her to himself in a gentle embrace.
"You are avoiding me. I felt you the moment you returned, and I know where you have been…"
Christine was silent and did not meet his eyes. There was a pause.
"…And I see that Jeanne has been in a communicative mood today. What has she told you, Christine?"
Christine remained silent, thinking of all that Jeanne Guiry had told her.
He is obsessed with you…
No!
He needs you…
No!
You must stay with him and see things out…
No…
"What did you do with my father, Erik? Did you…give him something?" Did you kill him?
She felt his lips on her hair. His fragrance, subtle yet masculine, threatened to distract her completely.
"I gave him morphine, Christine. They were not administering enough to him. I made certain that he was completely comfortable, nothing more. I would converse with him, during the evenings. For some reason, he enjoyed the sound of my voice…"
A memory taunted her. I have heard an angel, Christine. It won´t be long now, and I´m at peace.
"Nothing more?"
"Nothing more, ever, Christine. I did not wish for him to suffer, and I certainly did not wish for you to suffer. He gave us his blessing, by the way."
"What?"
"He consented to our marriage; he gave us his blessing. I never told you, did I? I have been negligent, and I admit to it."
Her father´s voice: You will be fine, Christine. I know it now.
"That would explain a few things," Christine conceded.
There was a pause while her thoughts wandered. Erik´s hand caressed her hair, then her back, keeping her close against him. The baby moved, and his hand stilled. He can´t possibly have felt that!
"You started work on skin grafts after you met me?"
"I did. The novelty of the use of stem cells is that the skin may be cultivated, grown and saved, and skin banks can be created without the need for donor skin, with very few problems with matching and none with rejection…"
"Skin banks?"
"They already exist. I have been working on developing suitable cultivated skin for use in the banking system, and on improving preservation techniques."
"And you and Jack had a conflict over that?"
Erik stiffened against her. "Mr. Jacobs wished only for lucre. He had … associates who were willing to pay for further research on skin grafts for cosmetic use. It was widely thought that I was interested in treating my own deformity, and they tried to exploit that perceived weakness. That was when I abandoned my research. You know the rest."
"He used me," Christine murmured. "I´m sorry I was so gullible."
He lifted her chin with a gentle finger, and she was forced to look into his eyes. "It was my fault for marrying you. You have been forced into some …extreme circumstances because of who I have been, Christine, and I fear…" he trailed off, deep in thought, still looking at her. "I was selfish to marry you. I simply wanted you too much."
Perhaps you´ll get over it, she thought. Passion never lasts. What does?
"I simply want you too much, and always shall," he added, as though he could read her thoughts.
Christine sighed. "You don´t have to wear that mask around me, you know," she remarked, as the kitchen lights glinted off its smooth, white surface. "You weren´t thinking of your face when you became involved in skin graft technology, were you?"
Erik removed his mask and held it aloft, quietly contemplating it. "Perhaps," he admitted. "But you made it clear that your objections to me – no, do not tell me that you have not harboured objections! – were based on moral, not aesthetic, considerations. You gave me hope."
Objections. Christine relaxed in her husband's gentle arms as he leaned back against the counter, sighing in the simple pleasure of the embrace. Yes, I still have objections. What real good can come of such a bloody past? What if I´m doing more harm than good by staying with you, Erik?
She suppressed her questions and tried to ignore her nagging feelings of guilt as she reveled in the fragile peace that they shared.
"Would you stop looking out the window like that? You´re as nervous as a Chihuahua!" moaned Meg as she watched Raoul peer through her blinds for seemingly the hundredth time. "The neighbors are going to get antsy and complain!"
From her position on the sofa, Ashley laughed. A soft, throaty laugh, thought Raoul to himself, turning towards her and smiling sheepishly. He felt all the warmth of friendship for Jack´s widow. Not only was she patient under the suffering caused by her recent loss, but she had proved to be a good friend to Christine, whom she hardly knew.
"I´m sorry. I guess I am nervous, but I still can´t believe I´m finally going to see Christine. It sure took her long enough to agree to meet me…"
Meg directed a scathing look at him. "She just doesn´t want trouble. Her husband nearly killed you, after all, and he might just want to finish the job. Look, Raoul, I know that you and she once dated, but what will it take to convince you that it´s a bad idea for you to get involved with her life? Everything´s different now…"
"Aw, come on, Meg," said Ashley. "Give Raoul a break. Can´t you tell that he´s sweet on her?"
"He shouldn´t be!" snapped Meg, scowling. "And besides, he´s just recently broken up with someone. He´s got the usual feelings anyone has on the rebound. What was the name of the one who broke your heart? Angie?"
"Angela!" snarled Raoul. "And she didn´t break my heart! She just turned out to be a …"
Meg leaned forward. "Come on, now, Raoul…you can say it! Go ahead and use the 'b' word. We´re all grownups here now."
"Give him a break, Meg!" Ashley said. "He´s a good guy, and he wants to help an old friend. Anyone can understand that!"
There was a knock at the door, and the three froze just as Meg was about to speak. She hurried to the door and opened it without looking through the peephole.
"Well!" she said, "if it isn´t Mr. Karrubi! Imagine that! To what, sir, do we owe the honor of your visit?"
"Please shut up, Meg," said Christine, appearing from behind Nadir. "You know Erik won´t let me see Raoul without a chaperone. Anyway, Nadir´s okay. Really," she added, looking into Meg´s living room and waving at Raoul with a timid smile. She remembered all too well the circumstances of their last day together.
Raoul bounded forward wordlessly and enveloped her in an enthusiastic hug. "Girl!"
"No!" barked Nadir and, grasping Raoul about the ribs, pulled him backwards and away from Christine. Raoul rounded on him, clearly ready to brawl.
"No, Raoul!" said Meg, "A fight would end Christine´s visit real fast, wouldn´t it? Do you want that?"
Raoul froze and slowly lowered his fist, glancing at Nadir and shaking his head.
"Why don´t we all just sit, now," ventured Christine. "Meg, could we serve Nadir here a Coke? Do you have Coke? And then maybe we can sit and chat," she said in a thin voice, eyeing the men nervously.
Meg rolled her eyes. "It´s gonna be a long evening!"