Chapter 21: The Garish Light of Day and Night
As Kristina headed to the street corner to catch the omnibus which would take her to Amelie's flat, a cabriolet swerved around the corner and splashed her skirt with a great clot of mud. Grumbling to herself, she brushed at the splattered grey wool, but it would take more than a few swipes from a handkerchief to get the mud off.
She was so busy wiping that Amelie almost ran her over as she charged down the street, looking a great deal like a short, red-faced omnibus herself. As Kristina rose to her feet, Amelie hit her with a tumble of breath-defying words, "Kristina, where have you been? I saw the papers, there was a terrible accident at the theater, you hadn't been home, then your friends came looking for you, and I've just come from the telegraph office, Anneke will be so relieved, and where are you going anyway?"
Kristina blinked, astonished at seeing her. "I was headed for your flat, to tell you that I was all right."
Amelie, still panting, gave her a quick up-and-down, then headed back across the narrow street from whence Kristina had come, with Kristina following along. Finally she said, "Amelie, what did you say in the telegraph to Anneke?"
"That there had been a fire at the theater, that you hadn't come home and were missing."
"Oh, God. Why did you do that?"
Amelie said in a loud voice, "What was I supposed to do?"
"You know I stay at the theater sometimes."
Kristina's street was less-traveled than others, but a small crowd of people gathered to watch the entertaining spectacle of two women quarreling. The day was warm for late winter, and a few heads poked out of open windows to hear better.
Amelie went on, oblivious. "But there was a fire! Who stays in their dressing room after a fire? You may fool Mme. Sibelius, but you can't fool me. You weren't at the theater."
Kristina gulped, all at once aware of the chuckling spectators in front of her apartment building. She tugged on Amelie's arm and said, "Let's finish this upstairs."
"I have nothing to say to you, Missy, that can't be said right out here."
Instead of turning aside and letting Amelie have her say, Kristina flushed pink and hot, spoiling now for a fight herself. "And how exactly do you know I wasn't at the theater?"
"Because," Amelie said with folded arms and a smug look, "I went up there myself this morning. Your dressing room was locked, and one of the manager's assistants let me in with the master key. No one had been in there."
"You went in my room? To my private room?"
A cab man who had just dropped off a fare at the building across the street didn't get back into his small black surrey, but just stood there and lit a cigarette, watching.
"My girl," Amelie said, her voice heavy with condemnation, looking around like a diva warming up to her audience, "where were you last night? Where have you been on all those nights you've supposedly been 'in your dressing room?' "
"You're not my mother," Kristina said coldly, but her eyes started to sting.
"And just as well, for I'd have had the strap to you long ago. I don't care if you are of age. You still need a good thrashing."
"How dare you?" Kristina said, really angry now.
"Don't let her talk to you that way, Red," the cab driver called out. A couple of window washers came off the stoop of a nearby building and joined the cab driver for a smoke, a quick break, and the show.
"Think they'll start hair-pulling?" one said to the cabbie.
"Hope so," the cabbie answered.
Amelie had reached a fever pitch. "Mme. Sibelius is too easy with you, but maybe she'll change her tune when she gets back, and sees your brazen ways."
"When she gets back? What do you mean? She's supposed to be gone for the week."
"What do you expect? She loves you, you minx, but do you return it? She'll be here. I have no doubt she headed for the first train, and is on her way right now."
"You foolish old woman, seeing danger everywhere. What business is it of yours?"
"It's the business one fellow creature has to another. You must have something on your conscience, or you wouldn't be smarting."
"You're not the keeper of my conscience," Kristina retorted.
"I wouldn't want to be. It's probably black as coal dust, and will no doubt be blacker after you tell more lies to Mme. Sibelius."
Madame Franchard left her post by the front door, from where she had listened to this exchange in silence, and descended the front steps. She scowled at the two bickering women and said, "What's all this caterwauling? You've got the whole street staring at you. I'm ready to take the broom to you both."
"That maid's cheeky," the cab driver called out to Kristina. "I'd sack her."
Amelie whirled around furiously to glower at the cabbie, although he'd obviously given her an idea. She fixed Kristina with a firm glare and said, "You can give my notice to Mme. Sibelius when she gets back. I won't work for a lorette."
Kristina buckled under the word like it was a slap. Too furious to retaliate, she brushed past Mme. Franchard and ran up the apartment stairs as quickly as she could, slamming the door of the flat behind her so hard that the tiny crystals in the hall chandeliers rattled.
In the safety of her bedroom, she wiped again at her dirty skirt in between sobs, with Amelie's "Missy" and "lorette" ringing in her ears. How dare she, Kristina thought over and over, how dare she.
Then, as twilight came down like a violet curtain, her temper faded. She crept over to her writing desk and started first one note to Amelie, then another, crumpling them up until she had created a suitable, pretty apology. Please, would Amelie come back, and all would be forgiven and forgotten. As she blotted the ink dry, she remembered to add Amelie's back wages, adding a post-script that if Amelie did deign to return, she should think of these humbly-offered franc notes as a gratuity.
As Kristina put the letter in the evening post, she still chafed a bit under the need to apologize at all. What exactly was it that she had done, to bring down such a rain of abuse upon herself? As she walked back from the letter box, she sniffed a little, still feeling sorry for herself, thinking, I don't fit anywhere. No wonder Amelie doesn't understand. We live in a nice flat, we're almost bourgeoisie. If a woman doesn't have respectability, she has nothing, or so the thinking goes. Thus she can't walk about on her own, or work, or spend time with whomever she chooses.
Her train of thought led back to Etienne, and she realized that if Camille and Louvel were right, Etienne might come to the building. She thought, that's all I need, for Etienne to pull up in his carriage, and ask my concierge which flat is mine. Or worse yet, catch me out on the street here. Oh, it's miserable.
Instead of going upstairs to her flat, Kristina instead rapped on Mme. Franchard's door, hoping she wouldn't stammer despite the anxiety rising in her throat.
Mme. Franchard opened her door after the first tap, as if she had been expecting her. "Yes, Mlle. Sigurdsdotter?" She gave Kristina a cool, practiced appraisal. "You've recovered yourself, I take it."
Kristina flushed. "First, I want to apologize for that display of temper."
"I was a girl once myself," Mme. Franchard said, obviously keeping her thoughts to herself.
"And there's something else. I hate to trouble you, but I anticipate a late visitor. There's no way to send a message to tell him not to come, and I don't wish to be disturbed."
"I can see why."
Kristina ignored the sally. "He'll probably ring you, wanting to know which flat is mine."
Mme. Franchard drew herself up stiffly. "If it's after 10 o'clock, Mademoiselle, the door as always will be locked. Anyone rapping on my window will get a pot of cold water thrown on them if they persist."
"It will be a gentleman, a nobleman. You might not want to throw water on him."
The concierge's eyes flashed. "My husband didn't stand on the barricades and bring down Napoleon III, for me to stand frightened in my own house of some gentleman. If he's not expected, he doesn't get in."
"Thank you," Kristina said, breathing a relieved sigh.
"You need to go make yourself some tea, and wash your face. And try not to indulge in any more displays of choler, as it doesn't go well with your complexion. Hard to think one of the aristocrats would be chasing around a little scarecrow like you, the way you look right now."
"I'll try not to. Look like a scarecrow, I mean."
"Just a moment," Mme. Franchard said, darting back inside for a moment. She returned with half a sesame-seed cake. "Go wash your face, and have some tea. And oh, yes. Here's the evening mail."
Kristina gave the older woman a quick hug, much to her surprise, and dashed upstairs with hands full. Even so, this time she managed to close the apartment door quietly.
The first thing she did after hanging up her hat was to rummage through the letters. There were a few for Anneke, some reassurances and commiserations for Kristina about the accident of the night before, but nothing from Alberich.
So Kristina sat at the window and watched the fading of the day. Across the street, the blank faces of the buildings seemed shadowed and inaccessible, with most of their curtains drawn, and soft lamp-glows just beginning to sparkle across their stiff stone fronts. Rich orange and purple streaked the sky, neither day nor night. The stone façade slowly turned purple in the disappearing sunlight.
I'm tired of living in a twilight world, she thought. But it's where I find myself, all the time. I don't even have a consistent name, between everybody calling me 'Christine,' or 'Kristina,' or 'Svenska' and 'Sigurdsdotter.' Camille said that if nothing happened between Alberich and myself, that it was my fault. Perhaps it's all like that, so that if nothing happens in my life, that would be my fault, too.
She wished Camille was there with her, instead of out on the town with Louvel. Camille would understand that on stage was all a play, a fantasy. It's as if I am in a play, she thought, a play where I'm mis-cast, being neither a peasant nor middle-class either. I'm a virgin, but Amelie thinks I'm a whore. It's as if everything I do is an illusion, all part of a big play which goes on act after act, but all the same goes nowhere.
Without this singing voice, where would I be? she thought. It wouldn't have made much difference with how things turned out for Pappa. Pappa would have still met Professor Sibelius at that street fair in Gothenberg, and Professor Sibelius would have still loved him for his violin playing. That was one thing that wouldn't have changed, in any situation. If the professor had scarcely paid any attention to me at all, she thought, He would have still brought us to Paris because of the depth of his feelings for Pappa.
But had she not been able to study singing, there would have been no parts for her at the Opera Lyrique, thus no audition at the Eclectic Theater. And what if Anneke had died? That thought made her clutch at her throat, because she knew had that happened, she would have been another seamstress, or another shop-girl, or just another girl making sandwiches and pouring tea in a cheap little restaurant, living in one shabby room, always having to choose between coal or food. Perhaps she would have become some man's mistress. Perhaps she would have had to leave a baby on the church steps.
This city is cruel, Kristina said to herself, and all at once, she understood why Alberich lived down in the Opera cellars.
At the window Kristina sat for a long time, as the glare of the street lights filtered through the sheer curtains. At least Alberich didn't think of her a loose woman. Whatever he thought, it wouldn't be what other people expected. He lived in the twilight, too, and like her was neither one thing nor the other. French but not French, for instance, with that heavy gravity, that calm but unsmiling expression. A man, but not a man who just helped himself to what he wanted. Beautiful, but with that peculiar face like a window into his soul. Shy and reclusive, but Timurhan and McLeod spoke of him with love.
Why won't he come and ask for me? she thought with the sadness of someone confronted with an insoluble enigma. All he had to do was to meet Anneke and to ask for Kristina, to lay a claim to her. Then Kristina understood something, as painful as the light is to someone whose bandages are pulled away from wounded eyes. He was waiting for her. He was unsure of her. Kristina held the key in her hand, but never knew in which lock to insert it.
Alberich would not ask, until he was sure that the answer would be, Yes. Very well, she thought. The answer will be, Yes.
Cold, she wrapped herself in a thick shawl and continued to sit by the window, and the street lamps and stars blazed as night fell for good. As the night lengthened, fog obscured everything, and the lamps had trouble shining through the thick black night air. But she still didn't get up to light the lamps in the flat, and so darkness cloaked everything around her. The night felt clear and clean, and everything seemed wonderfully simple, because she had made up her mind.
Horses clopped on the street, then stopped, but their noise made Kristina jump, for she had dozed off. She cracked the window to hear better, even though it was quite cold. While the horses stamped and neighed, there came the sound of rapping on the glass part of the front door. Soon after, a woman's voice rose up, followed by a man's. It was Mme. Franchard, and she sounded angry. In the pointed exchange which followed, Kristina heard her name mentioned, followed by an angry exclamation from Etienne.
Kristina went over to Anneke's bedroom window, because the front of the building was easier to see from there. Blazing like a peacock in formal evening dress, Etienne strode towards his carriage and almost knocked his coachman down. He hadn't just come in a cab, he'd brought his own coach, and not just an ordinary coach, but a coach-in-four. The fat white horses clomped on the pavement, impatient to be off, but the coach obstinately remained in front of Kristina's building.
Her first impulse was to hide behind Anneke's thick brown curtains, but then she flung them open in anger. It was darker inside the flat than out, so she had a good view. It was obvious what Etienne was doing there. He was waiting for Alberich, waiting to see if he could catch a glimpse of his rival exiting on the sly. No doubt he thought Alberich was at the flat, and that was the reason Kristina would not receive him.
Why else would he brood inside that silent black carriage with the elaborate family crest embossed on the side? Perhaps he hoped to confront Alberich, even throw down the gauntlet to him. Not that Alberich would even pick it up, but would that enrage Etienne even more, raised as a gentleman to issue challenges, to demand "satisfaction."
The whole street was supposed to see the great lord in fine silk and linen, horses so fat their sides strained against the harnesses, all those clattering hooves keeping everyone up. The message was plain: I'm here, I'm important, I'm not going away until I get what I want.
The coachman's back was stiff against the cold as he sat perched up on his high seat. It was impossible to see Etienne inside that black hearse of a carriage, but like the corpse at a funeral he was impossible to ignore. The chimes on the mantelpiece clock rang the hour, and Kristina dropped the curtain. She had never thought of Etienne as someone of whom she should be afraid. It crossed her mind that he could probably have her sacked.
Good, she said to herself. Let him sack me. He'd be doing me a favor. I've had it with him, and not just him, the whole lot of them.
Etienne must have finally realized she wasn't coming back, or that a man wasn't coming out, because the coachman flicked the reins. The horses shook themselves and gave a few snorts of delight. Slowly they trotted away, picking up speed as they went down the block into the funereal night.
Into bed Kristina crawled, but she didn't sleep much. The next morning, she went to boil water for coffee and found the coal bin empty. Then she remembered that since Amelie had quit, she wouldn't be there to fill it, and that it was now her job.
Tired and hungry, she dragged the load of coal up from the cellar. Someone had turned on the sitting-room light, and it gleamed pale against the grey dawn. Kristina walked slowly as if wearing shoes of lead, not wanting to go into the flat. She couldn't stay in the corridor forever, though. The door was open a crack, and a little yellow light crept out as if reluctant to be inside. Arms laden, Kristina pushed the half-opened door gently with her foot. There in the umbrella stand was Anneke's umbrella, and on the rug next to it sat her carpetbag, travel dust almost covering up its pattern of brown tea roses.
Kristina tiptoed in, but there was no point. Anneke turned away from the window, where she had no doubt been staring for some time down the busy morning street, and faced Kristina. Hands on hips, her crumpled face unsmiling, she said, "If you were going to have a liaison, don't you think you might as well have left a note?"
(continued)