Smile Stays On
Ooh, the depressing humour of Moulin Rouge...but on with the show...
Zidler when the doctor tells him that Satine is dying. I thought he must feel more than he reveals...here goes.
2: Harold Zidler
'My Little Sparrow'
The night was cold, the frosty air chilling me as I made my way into the dressing room of the Moulin Rouge. The piles of clothes, the bare boards, the chipped enamel of the sinks...the abject poverty of it all made me wince as I rounded a corner and found Satine, Marie and the doctor. Satine was unconscious, her face ghastly pale and her eyes – those beautiful eyes that sparkled, captivated, enchanted men – unseeing.
The doctor looked serious, sombre. Marie looked worried, her face drawn and anxious.
"Monsieur Zidler, Mademoiselle Satine is dying. She has consumption."
Just like that! And it was out in the open, what we'd all secretly known but hadn't dared to voice, the terrible, awful secret hanging over the Moulin Rouge. Suddenly the Duke was unimportant, the writer insignificant, love triangles, infatuations...none of it mattered.
Only this mattered. Life...and death.
Death. The death of Satine. "My little sparrow is dying?" I said weakly, my voice harsh even to my own ears. Suddenly I hated myself, hated my lies, my grovelling weakness. My greed, my cowardice, all merged into one. I saw myself, terrifying, clownlike, evil, like a dark hand over lives, many lives destroyed by my interference.
Marie crossed herself and looked out of the window to where dawn was breaking. I had not even that salvation. My black soul would be turned away from the gates of Heaven. Corruption...the list of sins and faults grew longer before my stinging eyes. I felt chilled still, but no longer by the night air – now by the cold, gripping hand clutching at my heart.
I closed my eyes briefly, attempting fruitlessly to stop my mind from wandering in such unsavoury circles. But then, hadn't I been wandering in unsavoury circles all my life? If I died now, who would remember me with affection, with anything akin to love? Nobody. I would be forgotten as quickly as I was buried. I would be nothing but a name on an unpolished headstone gathering moss.
"She mustn't know, Marie." Even as I was saying it, I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't stop myself. There was nothing I could do. Her life was beyond mortal aid. All I could do was make the best of a bad lot...something else I'd been doing all my life. Making the best of it. I was never bright...I made the best of it. I was never handsome...I made the best of it. I was never witty...I made the best of it.
But suddenly the worst of everything was crashing before my eyes. "The show must go on."
Isn't that the worst of corporeal sins? To lie to someone about their fate? Death is the promise we are all born with...
But to die now, young, beautiful, in love...
A tear trickled down my rouged cheek. I wiped it away briskly and turned away from Satine, and Marie, and my emotions.
There was a show to be put on, after all.
A/N: Whaddya think, then?! Sorry it's so short, the scene was shorter than I thought it was when I came to write it, as to my reviewers – thank you!!!!
The next one will be longer, promise!!!!
dizzyBlonde