Dear Shadi,
I suppose I could have spared myself some anxiety by recalling that you have ever been the most unrepentant of bluestockings. I detected in your last letter a distinct lack of shock and outrage over the unconventional situation I found myself in with Erik in Rouen. (It raises some questions as to what you did during your Paris years; but as you have been a respectable matron for quite some time, I will forebear to ask.) Not that there was anything remotely untoward in our conduct, but if the city had known that we shared a house as friends and not as husband and wife… well, the trick was never discovered, and so there's an end to my confession.
Those were happy days I wrote to you of for the most part. It took us time to grow used to be around one another. And then, as soon as it seemed like we had found our footing, Erik fell into a black mood. It was not the first time I had seen him so, but those previous times had always been from a good distance. What had been an unfortunate quirk of my-acquaintance-Erik was now an… extraordinarily agonizing fact of my life.
He all but disappeared from my day-to-day life. I still went on my walks, tended the garden, and invaded the cook's sanctuary. I tried to be content, but my eyes were constantly caught on shadows, hoping one of them would be him. I thought of what he had told me of his father; I thought of the cuffs of his shirtsleeves turned up against the unrelenting heat. They revealed a white-on-white tangle of scars that had grown exponentially since the years in Mazandaran. Even the ordinary business of his work on the Rouen Opera House seemed to add to the collection, careless red scrapes and cuts that he paid no heed to.
For a brief time, I had felt the right to fuss and bandage them, with Erik looking on utterly amused. But no more.
What was worse, I had no idea what brought on this change. One moment, we were laughing over wine, and then it was gone. His eyes went dark, my heart skipped a beat, and then a ineffable change. I cannot forget his face—I know, I know, a curious turn of phrase for a masked man, but there it is—that first time he looked at me as if I had dealt him some painful physical blow. He half-flinched away, his eyes shadowed and blinking. I thought it would be a brief spell of ill-humor. Those I had seen many of. I was wrong.
I found myself wishing I had Christine Daaé's extraordinary voice. Maybe then I could sing him out of his sullens. Maybe he would look at me, and the confusion of whether he should tolerate me next to his piano or not would dissolve. But the only gifts I had were my unremarkable, practical ones. I could put on the mantle of a chatelaine. I could direct the caretakers of the house to do things in a way I knew Erik would like. I could periodically show up to take his arm and let my even gaze tell the world, he is just an ordinary man deserving of ordinary respect.
"That is a man who does not know what he wants," the housekeeper proclaimed one day. I had found myself in the kitchen, with the two older women. They were watching in somewhat horrified fascination as I candied orange peel and rinsed rice for shirin polo. I figured that I could tempt his sweet tooth, if nothing else.
"I can't agree with that," I replied. "Erik knows what he wants as much as anyone does."
"Even worse," she said. "Then he is a man who does not appreciate what he has."
The cook added her voice to this assessment, and I felt compelled to defend my poor absent Erik. "He's very clever. He's an extraordinary man."
"No," the housekeeper said, very voice very dry. "Just a man. You only say otherwise because you're all a woman and love him."
I had nothing to say to that. Whether they really believed it or not, the whole household operated on the premise that Erik was my husband. We were presumably one of those utterly antiquated couples who lived in almost entirely separate spheres, only meeting on occasion. But that did not preclude love, I supposed. I decided to be pleased that I had played my role so well. But it was a hollow pleasure in the face of Erik's abstraction.
The only thing to do was keep on. I would stay busy in the evening with my own projects, all the while listening to his marvelous Joie symphony take shape. Sometimes I would fall asleep crying for the overwhelming beauty of it.
And then as suddenly as it had come, it went away. At least for the most part. Our last weeks in Rouen were so busy, I'm sure some things were lost in the rush. But what little time I spent with Erik was comfortable again. Only occasionally would he look at me as if he did not quite trust what he was seeing.
Returning to Paris weighed heavily on me. I had meant to spend my summer thinking of my next move, but I had not. I had used my time with reckless abandon, and felt that I was perhaps now to suffer for it. But I was determined not to repent of the way I had spent my time. I thought, if I only ever have this summer of freedom without sorrow, I will at least enjoy it. And it truly was without sorrow, as much as Nadir would have liked to think I was acting irresponsibly out of grief.
The last full day we were in Rouen, there was too much to do to give the future much thought. It's amazing how much ephemera one can collect in a summer. Erik and I had travelled light, and we had both moved around enough in our lives not to be overly sentimental. But for whatever reason, I found myself wanting to pack the old books that came with the house, and all the little adjustments we had made for our temporary comfort, and the dahlias and roses blooming irrepressibly in those first days of autumn. But even if I could have taken all these things with me, there was not time. The Rouen Opera was returning to the just-completed Théâtre-des-Arts, and Erik and I were attending.
It had been more than half a year since I had dressed to go out for an evening. Besides changing out the clothes I would walk or garden in for a clean afternoon dress, I seldom even dressed for dinner. Erik and I had not kept what could be called a formal schedule.
The housekeeper and the one maid both attended me that afternoon, more out of curiosity than to render any particular assistance. I fixed my own hair and was then laced tight and buttoned into my evening gown. Privately, I missed the kohl of my younger days. But it would not do to scandalize these Europeans.
Erik had been busy to the last, but I heard him return to the chateau in time to clean up and dress. He was quick, and I was just having my opera gloves buttoned up when he called up from the foyer, "Any time now, my dear!" I went down.
He stood waiting, impeccably dressed in his white tie and tails, and with that particularly well-crafted mask of ivory leather. He had all the trimmings of a gentleman: silk top hat in hand, pristine white gloves, a gold watch chain, one of the late-blooming white roses from the garden thrust through his buttonhole. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that he looked handsome, but I stopped myself lest he think I was mocking him.
Instead, I presented myself, "Well. Will I do?"
"You ask the strangest questions sometimes," he complained, "for you know very well that you are beautiful."
For all I had just thought that he would not believe me, he was the one who brought me up short. Beauty was not a word much attributed to me, even in my youth. And I was no longer young, though I still felt young and strong and probably no less beautiful than I had been. I suppose the old housekeeper had been right: I was all a woman, and therefore very pleased to hear a compliment even if I did not think it was strictly true. Erik helped me into my wrap, and I paused for a moment to smooth out his lapels and straighten his boutonniere. "I was right," I told him, echoing early words. "We go quite well together."
He laughed at me, real laughter, and we went out to the hired carriage.
Erik, in fact, seemed to be in very high spirits that night. He teased me when he found out that I had only ever sat in the box seats, never with the main audience.
"I have sat up with the gods," Erik proclaimed, "and have also lingered beneath the trap doors. There is a particular melody to hearing opera from such out-of-the-way spots."
"But what do you prefer?" I asked, teasing back.
"A private box, of course," he shrugged. We were not to have a private box that night, merely decent seats in the main audience. We really were pathetically lost, I realize in retrospect. Arriving to an event on time, mingling with the masses—these were not things either of us were particularly accustomed to, albeit for different reasons. Erik's good humor had given way to taut alertness, but I stayed with my hand fastened to his arm. There were a few odd looks to be sure, but if someone was impolite enough to stare, I would smile and they would turn away.
However, as the evening wore on, I found that I was the one growing more anxious. I could not help but scan the faces in the box seats, just in case there was someone that might recognize me. There was a rather large handful of government men in attendance, though they seemed to most be local as opposed to anyone I might have encountered in Paris. Still, as the overture from La Dame Blanche came to a close and the orchestra made ready to strike up for the night's performance, I leaned over to whisper in Erik's ear.
"I feel like we're being terribly indiscreet," I said.
He chuckled. "Yes, terribly!" he followed my gaze to the collection of ministers in a prime box. "But we're gone first thing in the morning, so what does it matter?"
I allowed my face to express just what I thought of his cavalier attitude, and was met with twinkling eyes. "You are in love with danger," I muttered. As quiet as I was, I drew a disapproving glance from the woman sitting to my other side.
Erik, with those finely-tuned skills of ventriloquism, suffered no such censure. His last reply came as almost a whisper just next to my ear. "And yet, you came."
Which was true enough, and I genuinely did not foresee any dramatic unmaskings of my identity taking place. I settled in for the performance.
Erik never cared for Meyerbeer, and I had seen Les Huguenots enough times to not be terribly excited for it. But the company poured their hearts into it that night, clearly ecstatic to resurrect their home stage that had been lost in flames, and so the hours went quickly by. Marguerite Baux, who Erik had heard many times on the stage of the Garnier, sang Valentine. She had a good falcon voice that showed to great effect in the smaller venue. I caught Erik looking up at the ceiling more than once, and could not help but recall his tale of falling ceiling beams during his early employment in the project.
The intermission was the time I was most dreading, as Erik led me out into the crowd. He was hailed by a few of the city officials and the opera management who knew him from the project. He maintained his good humor, and I could see that there were a few of them who brought up short by my presence. More than more person commented that they had not actually believed in the tales of the contractor's wife.
And they were right, I found myself thinking. I was not Erik's wife. But I was his friend. And if I made his life a little easier or added a little polish to his reputation by standing at his side, I was glad to do so.
We found ourselves in conversation with a little knot of fellows from the office of city works, and the talk was of a decidedly technical nature until we were joined by one of the mayor's chief aides.
"My goodness," the aide drawled, after he greeted us. "Little gypsy enchantress you have for a wife, Rossi! Wherever did you find her?" The tone was relatively complimentary, but Erik went completely rigid at the words.
I, however, knew how to play this game. "Alas!" I sighed, "Don't tell me my French is still so deplorable after so long!" The gentlemen switched quickly to gallant reassurances about 'my charming accent,' completely bypassing the question of where the accent was from.
The conversation turned quickly back to business, and one of the younger men asked Erik about his next project.
"My next project," Erik declared, "is taking Madame to Paris to visit her seamstresses."
I wanted to swat at him for saying something so absurd, but when I looked up at Erik, I found I could do nothing but smile. He looked to all the world like a man who doted on his wife, affectionate and indulgent. It took a moment to remember that he had that flair for stagecraft, that voice made for emotion. In a word, that he was a fantastic actor. But still, I smiled.
"Well," the young man continued, "when the bills for your lovely wife's lovely frocks start coming in, I beg you keep me in mind. My late lamented great-uncle has just saddled me with an estate of sorts out in Lillebonne—I'd sell the beastly thing off right away, but it won't get a fair price given the condition it's in. But, then again, if it's fixed up, perhaps it would not be such a bad thing to keep." It turned out that the young man had rather an ancient family name, for all his middling occupation.
"I will put your name on my list," Erik replied, his tone imperious but not unkind, "but I make no promises."
By then, it was time to return to our seats. I found that I could at last relax. At the end of the performance, the principal architect and the conductor were both awarded honors by the Minister of Public Instruction. I thought Erik did very well in confining his displeasure to a few discreet huffs. We did not stay to mingle afterwards and in a move that should not have surprised me, I found myself being pulled into a hidden service corridor to make a quick exit out of the building.
We stood for a moment at the side of the building and Erik looked up.
"Are you pleased with it?" I asked.
"It is a box," he lamented, "but it does its job well enough." He shook his head, but I could tell he was not displeased. "But therein is the human condition, I find!"
"And do you object to this human condition?" I asked as he found our carriage and helped me in.
"I feel that I should," he admitted. "But I have become reconciled to it. Or resigned, perhaps. Either way, I am contented."
Silence fell as the carriage pulled away with a jolt. I turned to stare at Erik, this peculiar man I had fallen in with. I reached out, I think to touch his shoulder, but he stopped me. He thought, I realized, that I had meant to touch his mask. We stayed that way for a long, quiet minute, his hand barely holding on to my wrist in the space between us. He released my hand, and I let it fall, taking just a moment to touch his in a way I hoped was comforting.
"I will miss this place," I told him.
"Will you, indeed?" he asked. No more overt cheeriness, but he did sound contented, as he had said.
"I enjoyed being here with you," I offered, somewhat lamely. It was difficult to put into words what I had liked about being in Rouen with Erik, and having him sit next to me, staring, was not aiding the attempt. "It was nice to be settled."
"Ah," he murmured. "Well. We will attend to that in Paris. We will make our plans and set them in motion." He must have taken my silence as a show of nerves, for now he reached across to awkwardly pat my hand. "All will be well."
I was not nervous. I was silent because the question on my mind was, are we making plans together? But I knew that we were not. That had never been the intention. It was a mere flight of fancy that had led me to riding Erik's coattails into Rouen. One could not stay flying forever.
And so we survived our gala occasion in Rouen—and so we survived Rouen. As we boarded our Paris-bound train, I felt like I was standing on quicksand.
Erik told me that he would be staying at his flat under the Opera again, but did not expect to be there very long. He had finished the sale of a property he had been holding onto and said the he meant to find a new one. And work? Who knew about work? I wondered if, when he got back into his strange little underground cottage, if he would want to stay again. His free time over the last weeks had gone back to music, and where better to compose?
Still, when he escorted me to the Rue de Rivoli, he bowed over my hand and said that he would see me soon. As I watched him descend the stairs, I felt oddly bereft.
Nadir, on the other hand, seemed genuinely glad to see me. We embraced like the old family we claimed to be, and I found myself wondering if we said something was true long enough if it became so.
I had Darius's old room. He had moved into a small apartment in the adjacent building, and was working hard to improve it in the weeks before his wedding. He was still a regular sight in Nadir's home, but I supplemented the maid-of-all-work's salary to offset both his new responsibilities and the complications of my invasion.
It pleasant to be with Nadir again, though I missed my blooming garden and the towering forests of Normandy. And I missed Erik.
I took to cooking more to pass my time, and after I had been in Paris for a week, I set out a dinner for Darius to bring his fiancée to. Darius had done his best to keep a well-stocked pantry, but I made improvements as far as I could. There was bademjan and rice, salads and pickles, and on a whim I made sholeh zard again. I asked Nadir to make sure Erik was invited, but there was no response.
"Probably for the best," Nadir commented. I was taking a break from the kitchen, and we sat drinking tea in the late afternoon. "We don't want to scare Irène."
"It is better for her to grow accustomed to him," I replied. "If she means to attach herself to Darius, I think the rest of us will be hard to avoid."
"You never know with Erik," he shrugged in half-agreement. "He pops up at the damndest times. Or he disappears." He refreshed both of our teacups. "If he does so again, I do not know if I have it in me to find him once more!"
I meant to laugh. But as Nadir's words sunk in, so did a cold dread the likes of which I had seldom experienced in life. I knew—I was sure—that I would see Erik again, and soon. But what if he did take himself away without so much as a farewell? If Rouen had taught me nothing else, it was that Erik was unpredictable. I thought to myself, well, it would be sad, but I will manage. I always do. But I could not shake the fear, something like grief before there was a cause for grieving. If I had thought that I did not want to let go of my old friends when I found them in Paris before, it was nothing compared to this feeling. That had been mere unwillingness. This—this was much more.
I could not lose Erik. If I did, I knew my heart would be broken.
And so it was, fool that I am, that I was sitting in Nadir's parlor, in the lingering warmth of the early October afternoon, drinking tea when I realized that I was in love with Erik. There were no degrees in it, no steps from beginning to end. Just the realization that it had grown from a respectable sprout of friendship into something much larger and much stronger while I had not been paying attention.
I am no philosopher. I cannot tell you where love comes from, or why, or what it means. Is it, as some of the ancient Greeks might have said, the messenger between men and gods? I am ashamed to call this love human, said Rumi, and afraid of God to call it divine. But then there is, I think, Pascal who claims we always love, and that in the very things from which love seems to have been separated, it is found secretly and under seal. None of it matters when one feels it.
All I can tell you is what it has been in my life: the fork in the road. We find ourselves in circumstances we did not choose, in situations we did not expect, with emotions that take us by surprise. And we must decide what to do. Do we marshal our passions and stay focused on some other, distant path before us? Or do we turn off onto that other road, knowing it may it may confuse and exhaust us, hoping it will yield sights of great beauty, trusting that the journey will be worth the effort? …Trusting that we will not take it alone?
As I look back on my life, I am almost surprised and almost ashamed of myself. You see, though I would like to be able to pride myself on my good sense, while I would like to be able to tell you that my head always ruled my heart, the simple fact is I always chose to love.
I did not need to love my melancholic Feridoon to be happy, but I took it as a matter of course. I did not need to love my madcap Reza, but it seemed silly not to.
I did not mean to love Erik, but when I saw the two roads before me, I could do nothing but veer off course and set my heart on him.
I tried to put all of this out of my mind when Darius arrived, looking neat as a pin, with his intended bride. I turned all my attention to trying to make Irène comfortable—I, too, had experienced the confusion of being in a room of foreigners with hardly a recognizable dish to be seen. But it was difficult. I could see the change in Darius, the lightness of his brow and brightness of his eye that had not been there a few months ago. And I wondered—is that same brightness to be found in my eyes? I thought not, for Darius knew where he stood with his beloved and I… did not.
It was a long and unrestful night. I thought of every reason I had for uprooting this unexpected tenderness. I thought of Erik in the harem. I thought of the mirrored torture chamber. I thought of Christine Daaé. I thought of myself: of my own moods, and memories of dark days. I could have reasoned my way out of love a hundred times before sunrise, had it not been for one quiet statement that punctuated every argument: look at how far we have come.
The next morning, something like a miracle, I heard a familiar knock at the apartment door.
"So you've graced us with your presence," I heard Nadir say, "if you came looking for leftovers, there are none."
I did not catch Erik's reply, though his tone sounded acerbic. It made my heart sing. But I knew how to pull myself together and present myself in public. At least I thought I did—Nadir gave me a curious look when I came into the parlor. But Erik did not seem to take anything amiss. He straightened up when he saw me, bowed very properly over my hand, and said lightheartedly, "poor Mojgan! Am I forgiven for declining your invitation?"
"We'll see," I said, though there was nothing to forgive.
He chuckled. "I have been very busy! I have a new project—I decided to take on de Elloy-Toussanit's Lillebonne house. I go down next week, to see if my idea will hold," he said. "And I have been making inquiries about your situation. I should hear back quite soon about your new papers—" Nadir let his continuing disapproval be known by a cough, which Erik pointedly ignored. "Until then, I was thinking we should exorcise all that Meyerbeer. Come to the Garnier on Friday, and we'll take in Faust."
"My," Nadir commented. "You are full of decision, aren't you?"
"Oh, yes," Erik replied. I suspected him to be willfully ignoring Nadir's sarcasm. "What do you say, Mojgan?"
I was pathetically inarticulate. But I expressed approval for the project, thanks for the work done on my behalf, and acceptance of the invitation.
Erik took his leave soon afterward, citing once again that he was very busy! After he left, Nadir turned to me and used that aged face of his to great effect. With proper paterfamilias spirit, he fixed me with a suspicious eye, and said, "I feel that those letters of yours may have left some things outs."
And so they did. And so they do, as you well know, my dear Shadi.
Mojgan
There might be a slight delay in the next update. I am being run ragged by doctors at the moment, and I want to make sure that the last three chapters get up in quick order. :)
Also, if anyone is curious, there is quite the extensive little volume about the Théâtre-des-Arts de Rouen (appropriately titled, Histoire du Théâtre-des-Arts de Rouen : 1882-1913) that can be found online wherefrom I gathered some of my details of the premier. Alas, since my command of French begins and ends with Latin roots, I am sure there are interesting bits I could not parse out. And I thought it interesting that another source basically said, the technical construction of the opera house in Rouen was second only to Garnier, which was really too large of a project to be a fair comparison. And that's why I decided to have Erik come and work on it.