He is twenty-three pages into his story by the dawn of the third day. Sleep comes not from the bottle but from exhaustion, his mind working overtime to bring into focus the details. It is no longer the sharp machine it was when he first arrived in Paris. Sadness and his nightly rendezvous with the Green Fairy have taken their toll. On the second night, he sleeps; lets it take him with no resistance.
On this third day, he quietly contemplates how to encapsulate the chaos of seeing his first can-can. Of entering the microcosm that was the Moulin Rouge. It stews inside him, flashes of color dancing on the underside of closed eyelids. He pens a few sentences, feeling inspiration warming like a bulb. It all dissipates with noise from the flat above.
He hears laughter. Toulouse and some pretty thing he's found in one of the cafes. They chitter so jovially it begins to make Christian ill.
He knows Toulouse still grieves. Their grief combined seems to form a bottomless pit. The laughter, the fleeting happiness of his grieving companion, still burns him. A thorny envy seems to grow from deep inside. Toulouse, despite it all, is living.
Christian knows he is not living. He is in limbo, while the others around him soldier on. It's the last thing Satine would want for him. For any of them.
A moment hangs in the air between muffled laughter from above. Christian finds something in him he had not thought possible. Resolution.
The chair groans against the scuffed floorboards. Hesitation, and then a step. Two steps. The door swings wide open, and Christian finds himself out of purgatory for the first time in weeks.
He travels upwards, chatter and giggling growing clearer. And at the foot of Toulouse's door, he stops. Hesitates again, feeling his resolve suddenly dissipate.
He has been a darkness on Toulouse for an entire year. A man who, by his own admission in the quiet, already has so much darkness he carries on his own.
Perhaps, Christian thinks, he should go back to his flat. Let Toulouse revel in whatever gaiety he can.
But Satine, in heaven or as some star in the universe, is watching. And he knows this is exactly what she wants. She wants him to join the living.
A hand raps at the wood of Toulouse's door. He hears the creak of floor under a gait he has come to memorize. The click of a bolt and the opening of a door.
And there stands Toulouse. He, already rosy and bright from drink and merriment, lights up. Knows the significance of Christian's place on his doorstep.
"My boy, what a lovely surprise!" he exclaims. "Come in, come in."
"I'm not interrupting anything?" Christian asks, eyeing the mess of paint and canvas.
"Nonsense, just an artistic meeting of minds." Toulouse gives a wave of his hand, dispels such notions. "You'll fit in quite well."
"Toulouse, you're the worst model I've ever had!" comes the voice Christian heard, now clear as day. "Honestly incorrigible. Introduce me to your friend and sit back down."
"My dear, you must learn to capture the essence of a subject, even in movement! There's no joy in stiff portraiture," Toulouse counters, playful. "Christian, this is La Perla de Estepona, a delightful hidden treasure I came upon at the Lapin Agile."
"A pleasure," he says, too afraid to ruin her name with his uncultured tongue.
She gives a smile, and Christian sees why Toulouse has plucked her from the tables of Lapin Agile. She is smudged in paint with black wisps falling from her chignon; radiant and a stranger to their tribulations.
"The pleasure is mine," La Perla says. "Toulouse has spoken about you at length but... I was beginning to think you were a figment that kept him company with the Green Fairy."
That admission gets a small smile from Christian. "I'm not much for socializing as of late, forgive me."
"It's forgiven, as long as you don't disappear again." She turns back to her painting, brush laying color upon canvas. "Toulouse is awfully lonely without you."
"Now, now! I never said that!"
"You don't have to say the words for me to figure it out." She gives Christian a cheeky smile.
Despite himself, he chuckles. Arms crossed over one another, he makes his way behind the easel. Studies the strokes with an untrained eye, glancing at Toulouse who fidgets on his stool.
It's a lovely encapsulation of his dear friend. Layered color in textured strokes, the setting behind Toulouse is but a gesture. He is the focus, a rosy face surrounded by shades of green. La Perla sees a lush garden somewhere in his friend, and Christian is glad to see it brought to life.
"It looks just like you," he finally comments.
"Really?" Toulouse lights up as he wiggles off the stool. "Let me see, I haven't had a peek in ages—"
"Sit back down!" La Perla barks, pointing her brush at the other painter. Toulouse obeys with a pout.
It's all quite amusing, watching the two painters bicker. Christian finds the tea kettle and pours himself a cup, his familiarity coming back stronger as seconds rolled past.
Quiet settles in as La Perla focuses. Toulouse sneaks glances and grins Christian's way, both knowing the benefit of stillness when one works. When art is being created, one drinks it in and hopes the inspiration rubs off onto their own discipline.
"You've sat still longer than Toulouse has managed to this entire time," La Perla says, breaking the silence. "Perhaps you'd be a better subject for my next work, Christian."
The suggestion catches him off guard. Him, the subject of a painting? His importance in this world lacks the rationale to waste precious pigments on.
"I-I-I don't think—"
Toulouse learns forward, giving a toothy smile. "Oh, Christian, think about it, won't you? I haven't the time, La Perla would capture your spirit perfectly."
He can see her holding back a smile, glancing at his reddening face out of the corner of her eye. No longer can he take the entrapment of the two painters; feet hit the floor.
"I'll think about it," Christian barely manages to mumble before finding the door. "I've much to do. Good-bye, Toulouse. Good-bye, La Perla de… de…"
"La Perla is fine. Au revoir, Christian," she says, unperturbed. He later learns the long moniker is a self-aggrandizing one. The string of words form a protective shell around her given name. As long as she is La Perla, she has perceived importance among her male peers.
Toulouse shouts out a rambling goodbye and invitation to come back that slips through the badly patched hole in his ceiling. All Christian can hear in his head are his father's long-forgotten warnings about artists.