The tram came to its stop in Bapeaume-lès-Rouen and disgorged its collection of city-working passengers into suburbia.

Erik was the first one off. Over the past six weeks, it had become his routine to claim the front seat of the tram—so much so that one of the drivers informed him that it was occasionally left empty on the off chance Erik would need it—for the very purpose of this quick escape. Thereafter, he would go around the station to the stables, claim a job horse, and strike out the few miles to his rented chateau. Somewhere between the station and the forestry path he took a shortcut through, he would start to breathe again.

That was not to say that Erik disliked his work. Garnier had dealt him an extremely good turn in securing this contract with the city of Rouen. The building itself was little to speak of: a squat, rectangular structure, with stolid squared-off windows and the sort of exterior cornicing and moldings as might be at home on a bank. Erik's suggestion to various members of the planning committee that they tear down what had already been built and redo the whole structure in the style of the famous cathedral was met with polite laughter. His second suggestion that it be built as an enlarged version of the charming half-timbered houses that littered Rouen was met with… slightly less laughter. But no matter—Erik shrugged and got on with his work. He knew how to build ordinary buildings, even if it struck him as such a waste.

People were wasteful, in general, he thought. Oh, who cared about money? You might as well waste money, so long as there was enough of it to waste. But more tangible resources like fine marble, or gold, art—time, too, and talent? It was quite criminal how people squandered those. Erik could see the hypocrisy of taking a paycheck for something that seemed to waste those very things in his life. But he valued what came with it: the quiet chateau with its disinterested caretakers, the project to occupy his time with, the freedom to travel from point a to point be with a perfectly good reason and no one to stop him.

He was struck, suddenly, with the thought that perhaps all people felt the same. Was it, in fact, not wastefulness but instead a profoundly mercenary spirit that moved people to guard their ordinary routines at any cost? It was almost too wild of an idea, and so Erik discarded it.

It was sunset as he rode up the gravel path to the ancient house. He took the horse to the little stables on the grounds, and untacked her before letting the boy the house employed see to her feeding and grooming. It was all in the contract he had drawn up with the station owner. Madame Bidault greeted him in the foyer and took his coat. She was one of those wiry, sprightly older women who seemed to have limitless energy for household minutiae. Her husband, on the other hand, took care of the grounds with slow, impassive serenity. The isolated ways of Erik and Mojgan suited them just fine, and if they had any questions as to the arrangement, these were left unspoken.

Instead of heading to the west—his wing—Erik gestured to the east. "Is Madame in?"

"In the garden room," Mother Bidault said, "a tray for supper, Monsieur?"

"Perhaps later," he replied and set off.

It had not been Erik's intention, when he took the house with Mojgan in mind, to visit her wing frequently. He seldom saw her in the morning: she was usually still abed by the time he had been at work for several hours. But over the weeks, it had become common for him to drop in upon returning home, and increasingly common for him to stay with her for a few hours before wandering off to indulge his own interests. They would talk of light things—the things they did and the people they met. Erik could have her in stitches by repeating the conversations between his master mason (a laconic, somewhat rustic Lillois fellow) and Sauvageot's assistant (a bespectacled young man with pretentions to both fashion and refinement.) Mojgan would show him the flowers she meant to press and the sketches she took as a way to explain her rambling walks. Erik thought her best skill with a pencil lay with the rigid lines and clear mathematics of technical drawings—she would have likely made a good architect, in a different world—but regardless of that he had to admit that she had a charming way of capturing the particular mischievousness of squirrels. Occasionally, Erik would play his lyre-guitar in her parlor. The piano was in Erik's west wing. Mojgan had never ventured there, but there was some talk of her resuming her practice. Lessons were not something Erik felt up to, even if she had dropped the occasional hint.

Overall, it had been a pleasant enough arrangement and Erik was loathed to throw a wrench in it. But he had been anxious for hours now, and so steeled himself for an unpleasant conversation. But when he entered the garden room, with its large windows still uncovered and overlooking the now deeply shadowed hedges and roses, he thought he might put it off a little while longer. It was a comfortable, informal parlor. Mojgan was busy at a little desk pushed up against the wall opposite the fireplace, but she twisted around when she heard Erik enter.

"Good evening, Erik," she greeted, "How was your day?"

Like so many other evenings before, Erik drifted over to the bookcase and selected a worn volume. If he was to stay here much longer, they would need to expand the library. "A disaster. The fabric warehouse dropped off the goods for the upholstery—the upholstery. Thousands of yards of red velvet before the plastering is completed."

Mojgan gave a sympathetic chuckle. "Oh, dear. That shouldn't have fallen to you to sort, though, should it have?"

"Should and did are very different matters," Erik sighed. This was a story with several scathing mimicries involved, and by the time he was finished, he was laughing along with Mojgan. "Somehow I think your day was less dramatic."

"Certainly less velvet and falling roof beams," she said. She held up the paper on her desk. "I'm trying to write a letter to Nadir."

"Trying?"

"I'm a terrible correspondent," Mojgan admitted. "I'm fond of my friends, but I've never been able to keep up on letters. But I feel like I should try for Nadir."

"He will understand if you don't."

"I know. But he was so concerned before we left, and his last letter still sounded anxious. I feel like I ought to at least try to assure him that all is well."

"Oh, he knows," Erik commented. At Mojgan's inquisitive look, he confessed, "I fear senility is setting in with the old Daroga. Somewhere in the last few years, he has started to believe that all he needs to do in order to blend in is switch out his astrakhan for a bowler hat. This is not strictly true. A tall, dark fellow with those greying whiskers is still easy to spot."

"Do you mean to tell me?—"

"That he followed us here? Yes, of course. I expected it from the start. But he left satisfied enough." It had actually brought Erik great amusement to see the Daroga walking an ever-shrinking perimeter about the construction site, speaking with some of the workers, and lingering in local cafes. Mojgan, however, did not seem amused. "You shouldn't be insulted, my dear. If anyone ought to be, it is me."

"I'm insulted he didn't stay for dinner," Mojgan shot back. "When was this?"

"A week or so ago? I know I should have told you, but the plumbing—"

"Yes, the plumbing. You can't seem to get away from sewers, can you?" She bent over her page again. "Well. I'll still write to him. I want him to know that I care, even if I have a few issues to take up with him. And at least I can write to him in Persian. I don't know what it would take for me to write more than a few lines in French."

"Practice."

She snorted. "I don't know if I care about anyone enough for that much practice." After a pause, she asked. "Do you want me to say hello for you?"

Erik made a noncommittal sound.

"I will, then," she said. "Do you want me to put in any news about the opera house?"

Erik opened his book at last. "Do you want to bother writing about the opera house?"

She thought about this. "I might as well. I already started a second page and might as well fill it. Maybe not the upholstery fiasco, but I'll tell him about Monsieur Sauvageot's visit yesterday."

Erik acquiesced, if for no other reason than it was an anecdote that cast him in fairly decent light. He thought he had handled the intransigent principal architect of the opera quite well—the last time such a prima donna had crossed his path, his adversary had ended up with a frog in her throat. So to speak.

Before returning to her letter, Mojgan pointedly asked Erik if he had eaten, and when he vacillated on whether it had been breakfast or lunch that he had last had, rang for Mother Bidault to bring that tray of supper up. They spent awhile in companionable silence, Mojgan at her letter and Erik with Stendhal. He moved to the sofa that had its back to her desk, and when the food was brought in and the old woman departed again, he felt at ease enough to slip off his mask. He knew Mojgan would not get up from her spot until he was finished.

With some surprise, he noted that the centerpiece of supper was a wedge of crustless quiche, made very dark green from a multitude of herbs. "I would not have thought kookoo-e sabzi was in Cook's repertoire," he said, poking the distantly familiar meal with his fork.

Mojgan laughed. "Oh, I scandalized the whole household by going into the kitchen and actually doing something. I think my gentility has been called into question."

"Likely," Erik said, "a woman who can afford a cook is not a woman who then spends time in a kitchen."

"Nonsense," Mojgan replied. "Especially when I am a better cook then the hired woman."

Well, there was no denying that. He was quick to finish his eggs and the salad on the side. "Careful, or you'll find yourself servantless and be obliged to get up before dawn to light the ovens."

"Oh, no danger of that. I was forgiven for cooking after I fed the staff."

Erik could smell the sealing wax Mojgan held up to a flame, and took a last sip of wine before replacing the mask. "Finished? I'll post it tomorrow, if you'd like."

"Thank you," she stood and stretched, and Erik had to wonder just how long she had been trying to write that letter. She had her own book to pick up, and so took up an arm chair close by. It had taken him quite a while to notice that she stuck quite firmly to volumes of short stories, or perhaps poetry. Eventually, he was able to pry it from her that it was a struggle to read through an entire novel in French. On a whim, he purchased a subscription to Magasin d'éducation et de recreation, and when it came would read the latest installment of Godfrey Morgan to her. Thank God she was a sensible woman, and did not fly into a fit simply because it was a novel being serialized in a children's periodical.

He would miss reading with her, he realized, if this conversation went the way he thought it must. But there was nothing for it.

"By the bye," he said, dropping into the Persian they were using less and less as the days passed, "apparently, you are now my wife."

There were no immediate protests or recriminations. The eyebrows rose up thoughtfully. "Indeed?" she returned to her book, "Well, I told you that if I married again, it would be to a fellow I liked first."

"What, no objections?" he said. He kept his voice teasing, but the panic that had been steadily rising since late that afternoon remained. "I should have you know that I summarily declined a dinner invitation on our behalf. I am a tyrant."

"It's probably for the best," she said, with a note of regret in her voice. "Cook put out pork cutlets with breakfast today, and I just can't bring myself to eat it. It would be much more difficult to avoid something like that at someone else's house."

She flipped a page. Erik stared at her. "How is it," he demanded, "that you are not upset?"

"About?"

"They think you're married to me!"

She paused. "Well, I was going to say that it probably serves very well that people believe that, Erik. But perhaps you should tell me how this all came about in the first place? And who are they?"

He gestured widely, taking in the better part of the world. He told her of the fellow, one of the officers of the city who he often saw in the course of business, oh-so-casually inviting Erik and his wife to an evening of supper and cards. Just a small party, the man had said, nothing terribly formal. Erik was quick on his feet, and wriggled his way out of the situation without committing to anything. He let it drop that she, without being specific as to who she was, needed much rest and repose, and even quiet suppers might be too much for her. He could have said, they would have been too much for him, which was no stretch of the truth.

"Perhaps it was a general invitation," Mojgan pointed out. "An assumption."

"That," Erik said with ponderous emphasis, "is not an assumption that is generally made about me." He felt the need to match Mojgan's unconcerned perusal of her book and so snapped his back open. "Also, someone saw when you forced me to meet you at the market on Tuesday."

"We needed curtains," she said calmly. "And I would have never seen that Brussels lace on the top shelf if you hadn't been there." After a moment, she added, "and you are picky."

"Won't you be serious? This must be fixed."

Mojgan did straighten up at Erik's request, and set aside her book. "What would you have me do? Go into town and flirt with every man I come across? That wouldn't serve at all." She offered a crooked smile. "I was never much of a flirt to begin with, and based on this conversation, I feel that I've lost my touch entirely." Erik stared at her. Or perhaps glared, and she sighed. "Really, Erik, this might serve very well. I am sorry to put you to the trouble of turning down invitations, but it sounds like you did that just fine. And unless you were planning on wooing the magistrate's daughter, I don't see what trouble it causes."

It really was a glare now, Erik knew. "You know very well Erik has no such intention. My concern is for you."

Something in Erik's words must have struck a chord with Mojgan, for she leaned forward slightly. She extended a hand, though did not go so far as to touch Erik. She merely let it rest on the arm of his settee. "Indeed, Erik, I don't want you to worry about it. I am not concerned. I am not offended. If you dislike it, then you must do what you feel is right. But I am content to let the misimpression stand."

Erik mulled this over for a long while. No, this was not how he expected this conversation to go. But he could not say he liked it much better. "Very well." They returned to their respective books.

Erik did not linger long that evening. He offered a scrupulously polite goodnight, and then took himself to the west wing.

A storm cloud seemed to hang over him. He had been prepared for shock, for horror, for Mojgan to shudder and say, How could anyone imagine such a nightmare! He had not foreseen her humorous acceptance. Yes, he could see her point—Nadir had been concerned about her good name, after all, and apparently her name was safe as the perfectly convenable wife of… of… a local professional?

And really, wasn't that what Erik had longed for, for so long? To live as other men did? Yet, every time that dream had been within reach, it melted away. As much as that always stung, it did not surprise him. All dreams melt away with the come of morning. Did they not?

These past weeks may as well have been a waking dream, by that measure: Erik woke, went to his ordinary job, returned to his ordinary house, and visited with this ordinary woman and spoke of ordinary things. It was not a bad life. And yet, it was not quite what he had ever imagined.

He came to his bed chambers. He undressed, leaving the day's clothes for Mother Bidault to collect and clean later on. It was an agreeable luxury to once again have someone else attend to the laundry. Another little detail of ordinary life Erik's imagination had left out in recent years. He washed off the dust and sweat inherent to have spent the day around construction, and put on a nightshirt and dressing gown. Earlier on in the day, he had thought to spend the evening looking over certain plans and sketches for the interior of the opera house, but now bypassed the desk in favor of the piano.

He could play Gounod once again without falling into sullen recollections of Christine. He could play Mozart. And sometimes, his shy new friend would come out to play as well. Since those evenings atop Mount Gros, he only had periodic glimmers of her—indeed, it was only very recently that he had come to think of the compositions as her. She was subtle where Don Juan had been bombastic; she restated herself with ever-increasing intricacy and delicacy, whereas the Don found his power in his reliable ostinatos.

She did not like Erik's mood tonight, but instead of slipping away as she usually did, she stayed and let him vent his frustrations in the golden rises and silvered falls of her scales. Ossia, she whispered, not obbligato.

He still did not know what to call her.

His fingers stilled over the keys and he heard a quiet knock at the door of the parlor. "Come in, Mojgan," he said.

She cracked open the door and slipped in. She was still dressed for the day, though Erik realized it had been several hours. Her hair, however—freed from the braided coronet she generally wore, it hung almost to the piano bench as she took a seat near him. She looked… well, Erik did not know what that look was.

"I didn't mean to be flippant," she murmured. How was it they found themselves so often speaking so softly? There had not been many soft voices in Erik's life. "I did not realize how… bothered you were by Monsieur Clarins' mistake. I am sorry."

Erik did not know where to look. Her earnest face? Her hair, like the black night sky falling? He turned back to looking at the piano. "It is nothing. I am not bothered."

"You were," she said.

"And you were not." He could see her shake her head out of the corner of his eye. His fingers followed his eyes, and returned to the keys. A few soft notes came. "We have lived very different lives." This time, it was a nod. "I do not know how you can be happy… like this."

"Like what?"

He shrugged, and the music turned meditative. Melancholy. He could feel her eyes following his hands. "To be here, in this obscure little house, with no one but me for company—when once you were surrounded by glittering luxury, and a myriad entertainments, and all the beauty that should be in life."

"Those are not things that make for happiness, as well you know," she said after moment. She reached out and touched a key, striking a soft, low note that proved a well-weighted counterpoint to the melody taking shape under Erik's fingers. "To speak the truth, I am not sure if I am a creature made for happiness. I don't know if I have the soul for it. But I am more content here than I have been at any time these last twenty years. But my contentment cannot come at the price of your own peace, Erik." Erik dropped his hands to his lap, and now merely listened as she idly picked out the simplest notes of what he had just been playing—not quite perfectly, but the spirit was there as a stripped-down echo. "I have been a wife more than once. It did not surprise me to be thought of as such. But I am not the wife you have thought of—am I? This place must be a strange reflection of the life you thought you would have had with her."

Now, there was silence.

There was only one her she could be referring to. Erik paused and looked around the room. It bore more marks of himself that Mojgan's snug parlor—papers stacked on various surfaces, small samples of building finishes, the lyre-guitar left out and the violin resting in its case. It was not the little house by the church off the Brittany Express. It was not the house he had imagined bringing his-wife-Christine to.

But, as Erik had found in recent days, his marvelous imagination had come up short on many things. Life was not an opera: if there were soaring arias or rousing choruses, these were few. Most days were merely underscored. But could he really say merely? These subtle days, drawn in their soft colors, may have lacked the high drama he loved on stage. His life had been a shadowland of darkness, interspersed with flashes of blinding light—like Christine, a thunderbolt of song accompanied by lightening cutting across a black sky. The few bright moments did not seem to outweigh the darkness, by far.

Had that lightning and thunder instead turned into this dark cloud over Erik? Was it Christine's face that had flashed into his mind with Etienne Clarins' invitation? …was it the glory of the Garnier that exasperated Erik when he looked at his new little bank of an opera house? Was it Don Juan that sometimes frightened away his delicate successor?

…perhaps.

However.

However, Erik could change the tune the better fit the setting.

He willed all the sincerity he felt into his voice. "Don't trouble yourself, Mojgan. As far as almost-wives go, you are by far the… nicest I've ever had."

It was an insipid word, he supposed, but she understood him. Niceness was a rare thing in life, and precious for its rarity. She grinned, for just a fleeting instant, and he wondered if she was not deceiving herself by saying she was not a creature made for happiness.

"And you are quite the most interesting almost-husband," she replied. And just as a different woman might have mistaken nice as tepid praise, a different man might have been insulted to be interesting. But he also understood her, and knew that the interest, the concern, was genuine. She stood and held out a hand, which Erik squeezed briefly and released. "Thank you for declining the invitation. No, I don't feel equal to company at all."

"Certainly," Erik matched her playful tone, "And I don't expect you will until September 30th."

"September? And why shall I make this sudden recovery in September?"

"The inauguration of the Rouen Opera House's stage, of course," he said. "It's to be Meyerbeer, which is to be lamented, but I am still sure you will rally to see it."

She nodded seriously, "yes, indeed. I feel confident that recovery from this obscure nervous disorder will come in just about four and a half months. And who is to say that a relapse will not occur after being overset by the opera?"

Erik shrugged. "Well. Who can say what comes after September? I don't know."

He could detect that her mock-seriousness hardened a little into real reflection. "I suppose you're right. The project will end, and then..." her smile returned. "Well, that's for another day, isn't it? Goodnight, Erik."

"Goodnight, Mojgan."

The door shut quietly behind her. He found the most recent sheet of manuscript paper he had been working on, something quite similar to what he had just played. On the last stave, he made a small adjustment, and underneath it noted ppp.

Pianississimo. Very, very soft.