Up Where We Belong
Chapter 3: …to a sparkling day…
Aurora
peered curiously at the man's reaction to her statement. She didn't even feel right calling him a
man. He looked more like a lost little
boy. With his sad puppy dog eyes, he
watched her almost like she had set the sun, moon, and stars. This Christian reminded her of the spaniel
she had as a little girl growing up in New York. He didn't seem to have a clue what he was doing; he was just
waiting to be drug along by the leash.
"I'm
sorry," the man said, shaking his head slightly, "I was thinking of something
else for a moment. I caught your
name. Aurora Veritas. What was it you said afterwards?"
"Well,"
Aurora said inwardly sighing, "I'd heard the Moulin Rouge was auditioning
again, and I wanted to try out. That's
why I came to France a year ago, but they said the club had been closed down."
"I reopened
it. So you think you can do the Moulin
Rouge's type of performance? Can you
sing something for me?"
"Of
course. How about…
A
kiss on the hand may be quite continental,
But
diamonds are a girl's best friend.
A
kiss may be grand, but it won't pay the rent
All
on your humble flat,
Or
help you feed your, hmmm, pussycat.
Men
grow cold as girls grow old
And
we all lose our charms in the end.
But
square cut or pear shaped
These
rocks don't lose their shape.
Diamonds
are a girl's best friend…
…Well?"
Aurora had
sung with her best nightclub voice, which was a deep, dark tone not far removed
from her speaking voice. The song
seemed to have an adverse affect on Christian.
He was sitting on his stool, with his knees curled up into his
chest. He starred blankly at Aurora,
like she had just flown across the room or something.
"Are you
all right?" she inquired, walked to the
edge of the stage.
"How did
you know to do that? That was her
song."
"Excuse
me?"
"Nothing. It's just, you look an awful lot like the
Moulin Rouge's old lead singer, Satine."
"I've heard
of her, but I heard she died over a year ago from consumption."
"She did,"
Christian, sighed, growing silent again all of a sudden.
"Excuse me,
Christian," Aurora interrupted before he could fall too deeply into his
thought, "but I'd kind of like to know if you intend on hiring me. If not, then I should just go and book my
passage back to New York."
"I
apologize again, Aurora. Of course I
intend on hiring you. You're very
good. How exactly did you learn to sing
like that in New York?"
"I grew up
on the stages of Vaudeville. I figure
the Moulin Rouge is just one big Vaudeville with a bunch of other stuff happening
on the side."
"I
suppose," Christian muttered, then suddenly got up and strode toward the
stage. He possessed one of those
cultured walks that a person grows up learning in upper class England. "I'm sorry, again, Aurora, but I just can't
get over the remarkable similarities in you and Satine's appearances. You see, I was in love with her, and it
would comfort me some if I could track down her family and perhaps speak to
them. I don't suppose you have
relatives in France?"
"No, I
don't. My ancestors were all Welsh and
Irish. Besides, everyone looks like
someone else. It's probably just one of
those quirks of nature. I look like
your dead girlfriend, and you have a look-alike in Norway who's getting drunk
in some brothel while he plays strip poker.
It doesn't mean anything."
"You're
right, and it would be a crime against my lost love if I pursued a woman just
because she looked like Satine."
"Not to
mention it would be an insult to me, buddy.
So I'm hired, right. Well,
what's next?"
*********************************************
Aurora had
only been working at the Moulin a week, but she had already taken over the
show. Christian didn't know what to do
about it. He supposed it was somewhat
his fault. He, after all, was the one
who had given her the part of the lead singer, but it would have been stupid to
do otherwise. None of the other
Diamonds, as Zidler continued to refer to them, had the voice Aurora
possessed. She did have Satine's looks,
talent, and charm. She had something
else that Satine never would have even thought of using, though. She had a pompous ego that stretched higher
than the heavens. As soon as rehearsals
started for the club's glorious reopening, she was already ordering people
around, recreating the show to her wishes.
It didn't matter what Christian said, she would have it her way or not
at all. Zidler, for his part, was quite
amused by the whole charade. He simply
told Christian that as long as she was changing it for the better, she might as
well be given free rein. Christian
couldn't help but feel offended, though.
After all, it was Satine's tried and true act that Aurora was butchering
to bits. In his rage, he couldn't he
see how well the changes were fitting into the show. All he thought about was how much he hated this Satine
impersonator.
Hate was
too strong a word for his feelings toward Aurora, Christian supposed. He just despised the fact that she was such
a good director. She came up with ideas
that had never been done before, and made them work flawlessly. The girl herself Christian did not
hate. It was her ideals he hated. She had told him flat out that she would not
follow the Revolution's okay for freedom of loving as many men as she
wanted. She refused to sleep with any
of the customers, no matter how much persuading Zidler did. Aurora said that any man who wanted to sleep
with her could charm his way into her favors, and not wave them to him with
money. She would be no man's courtesan,
and that was final.
"I haven't
yet found the man who is worthy of my favors," Aurora told Christian one day as
they were discussing the act.
"Isn't that
being a bit haughty," Christian asked, giving her his most doubtful of looks.
"No. I'm worth more than money, and I'm worth
more than love."
"No one is
worth more than love," Christian said automatically as he looked over the
musical score.
"That's the
poet talking, Christian, and you know it.
I grew up in a land where the most important ideal was patriotism. If you don't love your country, you're
nothing. Now I come to a place where if
you don't love physically, you're nothing.
The world focuses too much on love."
"That's
because love is a necessity. You can't
live without love."
"I beg to
differ. Love is not a necessity. I don't need to be in love to be happy. One can go throughout life without loving
another person. It may be a lonely
life, but it's possible. Love is a
want. I know this because Americans
have freedoms granted to all their needs, but nowhere in the Bill of Rights is
there anything about freedom of sex.
Nowhere is there a law guaranteeing your freedom to love any person,
because that is a want. I don't want
love, nor do I need it."
"That's a
very lonely way to live, Aurora."
"Well
that's my choice, now isn't it."
And so
Christian found himself hating Aurora, hating the time he had to spend alone
with her. He couldn't believe anyone
dismissing love as something so trivial.
Even Satine had believed in love, and although she couldn't allow it,
she truly did want to be loved. Aurora
didn't even want that. She had more
important things on her mind, at least they were more important to her.
"Do you
love anything?" Christian had said to her a few days after their conversation.
"Of course
I love something," Aurora scoffed, "but I don't think you would called it
love. I do love truth and freedom,
truth above all. I think beauty sells
the world; otherwise what are we trying to do here. I love the stage. I love
performing. I love the limelight. But most of all, Christian, I love myself. I'm the most important thing in my life, and
nothing will ever change that."
That was
the turning point for Christian. He
worked with Aurora, listened to her directing ideas, and conversed with her on
a professional level, but he no longer saw her as the reincarnation of
Satine. There was no way a poet could
love a woman so cold and heartless.
Aurora was for that point on no more to him than any other employee. Except, he hadn't yet learned that there was
more than one level to the personality of Aurora Veritas.
