Hi again, everyone! SO, while writing this, I realized that I am going WAY outside of the Moulin Rouge spectrum here. (No duh, right?) It's kind of taken on a storyline of its own. I want to hear from the readers if this is disturbing any of you, or frightening you off, or anything. Please? Feedback is great. :D

Yeah, yeah. Here's the chapter. XD

Chapter 14: The Wait

Satine

I began to wonder if agony ever really ended, or if people only said it did so as to walk around the issue all together. As I watched the people around me, however, I began to wonder if it was not that agony ever really disappeared, but that it was overrun by the the everyday encounters and trials. There was too much anguish in this world for one person's to completely consume them; it would be selfish, in a backwards way.

Take my neighbor, Madame Duvois. She has a lame husband at home and a young son on the battlefront. Just yesterday she got the letter that he was dead; he must have died days ago, but it was impossible to know the exact time, with the inaccuracy and detachment of the letter. That night I could hear her sobbing through the paper-thin walls, and I came over to comfort her with food and a silent embrace.

Madame Duvois and I had not been very social with each other before this. I knew of her presence, and she knew of mine; but besides this blatant fact, there were no inquiries of any kind. Throughout moments of my life I would pick up on moments of hers: I sometimes exited the house at the same time as her, or her husband, or her son, when he was alive, or perhaps hear their lives through those same paper-thin walls. In any case, I became accustomed to their general appearance. The wife of the family is stout, amply-chested, with a plump reddish face and flyaway brown hair pinned up against her scalp under the same knitted thing. Monsieur Duvois rarely left unless he is accompanied by one of the other two, for he is not the best with his unwieldy chair on wheels. His face is pale and unseemingly mushy, as if he were a rotting vegetable just waiting to be thrown out with the garbage. His eyes are pale, while his skin is yellowed with jaundice. Every time I look at him, I fear that my future-old age- is peering back at me.

Their young son, while alive, was handsome, in a way that makes one wonder how such a man could spring from such a dismally lacking family and situation. However, I have realized, it is not fair to think of a person as only the one that you see in front of you today. The Duvois may have been beautiful people in their youth, or at least different from how they look now. It reminds me of how Marie would tell me, in a rare moment of confidence, that she hoped, when she finally made it to heaven, that she would appear as the young girl she once was. I looked at her differently after she said that. Just because you may see someone in a certain part of their life, does not mean that they have always been, or always will be, this way.

In any case, the son was indeed young, and handsome in the way that young men are, with his shaven, solid jaw setting the backdrop for his pleasant, neutral features. He looked like one of the young men sent off to war, the kind that is featured on brochures and posters. My Christian isn't, and laughably so. It made me weep how, even as he climbed up the stairs of that billowing train and was taken from my life so abruptly, that he always, and would always, look like an artist. His soft visage, so hungry for the slightest whiff of emotion to send a gushing, heady mass of it flooding into the seams of his face, could never lose that trait.

Or at least I hop so, I realize,, on those nights spent awake and thinking of him. I had a lot of time to think in those first few days, of Christian, of life in general. What would happen, I wondered, if Christian returned from war only to be missing in that incomprehensible fire of his? I shuddered to think, and burrowed further into the recesses of my memories.

And the Duvois had apparently taken a similar approach. After their son had left, which was only a few months before Christian himself, they began their journey through new, clouded eyes, helpfully blunted against things that would have otherwise overwhelmed them. I am ashamed that I had not thought much of their struggles at the time. Silly, oblivious I! Still happily unaware of the dangers creeping in, until it is too late.

And yet, when the letter came yesterday, and her throbbing wails shook the very seams of the apartment building, I came over, because I realized that I had to. Not only for her, but (and here I grimace) for my own selfish self. While standing before her door, I was able to fully take in the pain, the insecurity, of not knowing when my letter will come. I could not foresee if I would be the stronger for it. And yet, I took this probably unnecessary precaution- because the monster of announced death in the form of a blatant letter frightens me. The idea of receiving my own haunts my very dreams.

I could not tell if Madame Duvois took comfort in me being there, or was able to. She cried into my chest, as I held her, lowering her to a chair and lettering her weep. I believed that I cried too, because her situation came plummeting down on my shoulders- the only joy in her life, a handsome son to call her own, had just been taken from this world. For what it was worth, I shed my condolences. I do not know if she heard.

Now I sit up in my bed, starkly empty with its unused pillow. A letter is in my lap: luckily, however, it is from Christian. I read it hungrily. I had only just gotten it today, which I had picked up on my way home from work. I could hardly wait until I entered my own apartment to rip it open. From the Duvois' door, I could hear shallow sounds of life.

Satine, my darling, I could never put into words how entirely I long for your presence, and yet so adamantly wish you to stay away from me- as far as possible. It is not safe for you here. Although we are at a stalemate now, a change can break out at any moment. I long for your touch, but am happy you are safe.

I love you. Come what may.

-Christian

I bring the letter close to my chest after finishing, clutching it in my fingers as if Christian's essence in the writing can seep through the paper to the beating heart beneath. It hurts, to be away from him. And yet this in itself is an understatement. The depression is so prominent in my life, I can hardly rise from my bed in the morning, immersed in the gravity of the day ahead.

I read it through again, picking up on his questions. I had actually just written a letter to my friends from the Moulin Rouge, hoping that the Duke's anger had swollen over and died down. It must have, because the letter had gone through and Toulouse had sent an exuberant and lengthy reply, writing in great detail of all important events that had occurred after Christian and I had left. Reading his familiar handwriting, my heart throbs with longing to be back in the home that I have known for longer than I can remember. The longing is especially strong while Christian is gone.

And yet, I know that I cannot return, no matter how much Toulouse and the other bohemians (who had added their own letters) had begged. I have a duty, to wait for Christian. I will wait here until the end of the world, if I have to. The reply, which I had sent nearly two weeks ago, spoke of this promise, and Christian's involvement in the war. I can only wait for their reply.

And so, the monotony of each and every day tries to overwhelm my sleep-deprived mind. My work, however, is the only thing that keeps me sane; without it, the distress would have driven me mad weeks ago. As it is, I can focus on the mundane events of the day. It helps the time pass.

Every night, before I go to bed, I write some more of the letter to Christian. I want it to be perfect; I would hate to have any of the depression of my first few letters seep into the new ones. Christian's life sounds dreary enough with out my own grievances. It shames me to think of the luxuriant life I am living while Christian is out on the front. I long to bring him as much happiness as I can with my letters.

And I wait.

End of Chapter 14

Wow, that was short. Almost a waste of a chapter, methinks. For that, I'll bring the next one out super-soon. And it won't be as… blah. More action, less dwelling. Gah! It's like I'm writing through mud, or something. Next will be better. :)