A Place To Hide
That evening, Erik sat in the shadow of the portico at the back of the house. He was completely comfortable in the familiar surroundings under cover of darkness. The cool spring breeze stirred his sparse hair and caressed his face refreshingly, so unlike the dank air of the opera cellars.
Moonlight cast eerie highlights against deep shadows in the yard and he looked up at the night sky, amazed by its vastness. The stars reminded him of diamonds scattered across dark velvet.
He heard the door behind him open and then close again, followed by the rustle of fabric. He knew it was Kathleen, but did not turn around, letting her approach him instead.
"Here you are, Erik! I saw your door open and came to see if you needed anything."
"Did you think I had escaped?" He asked dryly.
"You are free to go anytime," She said, leaning against a white pillar that supported the portico roof.
Erik did not answer, and after a few minutes of silence, Kathleen said, "It's beautiful, isn't it, the magic that moonlight makes on the landscape?
"Hmmm," Erik acknowledged, and then said, "I'm sorry I displaced you from your room, Kathleen. Was there not another room you could have given me? Priscilla said something about you being in with the big girls or something." He turned to look at her, though he only saw the shadow of her form and a white oval where her face was. "These children surely are not all yours?" He said with doubt in his voice.
Kathleen laughed softly, "I guess I have never explained to you, have I? I am the headmistress of an orphan home. We have always been preoccupied with other things, it seems. I always tried to keep the children quiet upstairs while you were ill. So you probably didn't hear much from them, which I suppose says much for our discipline."
Erik laughed in spite of himself. "How fitting that I should end up at an orphanage! I don't think though, Madame, that I am yet young enough to be adopted!"
That and your face, Kathleen couldn't help thinking. "Erik, you don't need to be in a hurry to leave. Take your time healing, rest up, and then decide what you want to do."
He didn't tell her that he had no idea how to start a new life, or any expectations of normalcy in that life. He was inclined to be silent after that, so Kathleen left him to his thoughts and retired for the night.
Kathleen sensed that Erik was getting restless now that he was nearly healed, and his strength had almost returned to normal. It had been three weeks since his arrival.
One Sunday evening she approached him with a solution to his problem. He was engrossed in a copy of James Fennimore Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans" and wanted to ask her some questions about the Indians and if there were any in the city.
But she seemed quite excited about something and determined to drag him out of the house, but she infuriatingly kept him in the dark about where she wanted to take him. "Come! I have something to show you!"
"Kathleen," He said, holding back, "I cannot go out of this room with my face exposed! I will scare the children."
"We will use the servant's stairs out the back. The children are preparing for dinner and will not see us."
She tugged at his hand and he followed reluctantly past the silent fountain and gardens. She led him across the green expanse of lush lawn and beneath leafing old trees, almost to the fence at the back of the property. Back in the far corner, a roof top peeked up over mammoth lilac bushes that were beginning to open their soft lavender buds.
"I'd forgotten about the gardener's cottage, you see," She said, walking backward, still leading him by the hand, a sunny smile across her face. "It would be perfect for you—until you go." Her eyes seemed to beg him to agree, and something more peeked out as well, but then vanished.
He stopped her and kept her at arm's length. "Kathleen, how can I stay here? I would be a burden you don't need."
"But you are not fully recovered yet," She insisted. "And surely we can find something for you to do around here until you find something else." She was fishing for excuses and they both knew it. Erik intrigued her and she simply wasn't ready for him to move on yet.
They had stopped at the door of a small white cottage that needed paint and a few other repairs, by the look of its sagging shutters and window boxes and the unkempt state of the yard. Dead leaves from the autumn before clogged the small garden plots under the windows and were heaped in a soggy pile before the front door.
Hope began to rise within Erik. There was no reason he could not at least look at the place. The door stuck when Kathleen opened it, the wood swollen from the damp weather.
"We stored things from the house in here," She explained the cloth-covered mounds around the small rooms. "You could use anything you need here to make the house livable."
He was beginning to pick up on her enthusiasm. Why couldn't he hide here? He could teach music to the children for a small salary and live comfortably out of the world's viewing.
"This is the largest room here." Kathleen indicated the front room where they stood. "A small kitchen and bedroom are in the back. Quite cozy for one person."
Erik maneuvered around the covered furniture and odds and ends from the mansion. He poked his head through the door and looked over the back rooms.
Perfect, he thought. I can have peace, quiet, and solitude! The trees around the cottage made a secret bower around the little house.
"It will do nicely, Kathleen! With a little work it will soon be livable. In comparison to the other places I have lived, this will be quite splendid!"
"Good!" She said with a radiant smile. "I'm sure Zeke will be glad to help you fix it up in his spare time." She could hardly believe he was taking her up on this wild idea.
"There is no need, Kathleen. I'll provide a list of materials I shall need and I can do the work. It will be a relief to be busy again."
Kathleen cocked a dark eyebrow, which Erik did not see, for he was already checking the structure over for needed repairs. She wanted to laugh in disbelief! This man, with the exception of his disfigurement, appeared in every way to be from the upper class. His speech, clothing, and demeanor said that he hadn't been with the gypsies all his life. What could he possibly know about working with his hands?
The next morning, Erik was gone from his room when Kathleen brought his breakfast. She smiled to herself, knowing that he was already wrapped up in making the little house livable.
She found him looking over and sorting the furniture from the mansion. Some he had put outside. Her tripped a beat when she saw him from the left side. His black wig was in place, his slim body clad in a crisp white shirt, and trim brown trousers tucked into tall black boots.
"Ah, Kathleen," He said with a ghost of a smile curving his lips upward. He pulled a piece of paper from his trousers pocket. "Here is the list of supplies I shall need to fix the cottage."
"I will go get them this morning," She said, reading the neat script.
"And I shall need to make a new mask," He added. "I can't teach music to the children if they are horrified by my face." This time a smile reached his emerald eyes.
"Music!" Kathleen gasped, her own silvery-blue eyes alight with surprise. "You can teach music?"
"I would not say it, if it were not so, Madame. There are many things I am good at, as you will see."
He was not bragging on himself, Kathleen saw, for he was very businesslike about it.
"For a reasonable salary, I can live here quite comfortably." He looked to her for agreement. "If that suits you, Madame."
Kathleen floundered for a moment, so taken aback was she by his declaration of his intention to stay indefinitely. "Uh—yes—yes!" She smiled radiantly. "That would be wonderful, Erik! I have often thought of adding music to the children's lessons."
She came closer and looked at his face. His green eyes watched her intently, almost guardedly. She said, "I think if we make your mask flesh colored it would hardly be noticeable from a distance, and the children would soon get used to it."
She took his hand again. "Come, you must eat a hearty breakfast to keep up your strength. You have a lot to do, and I have just the right things to make your mask with right after you eat."
Kathleen provided Erik with flour, water, cloth, and newspaper to make his mask with. The construction of it was a very private thing, and he did it alone. When it was dry, he painted and tinted it to match his skin tone.
When he showed it to Kathleen, she nodded her approval. "You do know, though, Erik, that you will have to darken it after all your time in the sun."
All the hammering and activity around the cottage drew the children like bees to flowers. At recess, the young ones could be found peeking around the lilac bushes, and the older boys were even so bold as to hang on the window sills and peek in.
Erik felt like a new attraction at a zoo. He would mutter and curse in French and shoo them away. And after several days of this, he was rather short-tempered.
Thursday, after classes, Kathleen came on one of her inspection tours. She was amazed by how good Erik was with his hands. He had repaired the loose shutters and flower boxes, and patched the roof, and was now constructing a small porch on the back of the cottage. When the repairs were complete, he would whitewash the outside with fresh, new paint.
As she approached the back of the cottage, she heard Erik growl a curse in French and saw him put his thumb in his mouth.
She scolded him in rusty, but understandable French. He dropped the hammer, clearly startled and frowned fiercely at her.
"Don't sneak up on me, Kathleen," He snapped in grumpy English.
"And you shouldn't curse, even in French, Erik! Some of the children are learning French," Kathleen returned tartly. She handed him a jar of water. "Here cool off," She teased, all former irritation gone.
She looked his work over, admiring the precise workmanship in the straight timbers he had cut. The smell of fresh-cut wood tickled the senses pleasantly.
Erik looked around behind Kathleen. "You don't have any of the little spies with you, do you?" He asked sourly, his one eyebrow low over his eye. "Kathleen, you must keep them away from here! It's maddening! Every time I turn around, the little beasts are peeking in the windows or popping out of the bushes giggling!"
He put his broad hands on his hips and strode toward her, his jaw set. "Then they make sounds like ghosts or spirits or some other horrible thing!"
He stopped pacing and sat down on a sawhorse, his chin resting on his fist, scowling fiercely. Kathleen thought he looked like a petulant child. "This may not work after all," He muttered.
"Erik!" She laughed. "They are just children! All the hammering made them curious to see what was going on out here!"
"Just keep them out of my way!" He snapped grouchily.
Realization suddenly dawned on Kathleen, and never one to walk away from a problem, she forged ahead. "I understand what this is all about!"
She walked over to him and fixed serious icy-blue eyes on his green ones. "You intend to use the orphanage as a place to hide from the world! Oh, you will teach music to the children because you must make a living, but the rest of the time you want to hide away in your self-imposed prison! Yes, you have a disfigured face!" She threw up her hands. "Well, Erik, there are several thousand other men out in the world who are also disfigured in body and mind! The war-"
Erik bolted his feet and grabbed her upper arms in an iron grip, his face crimson, eyes glittering like hard green glass. "You dare to tell me how to live? You don't know my past or the things I have done!" His forehead nearly touched hers, his hot breath blasted her face. His blazing eyes frightened her—there seemed to be a hint of madness in them. "I hide form the world because it's the only life I know! The life I was driven to!" He screamed, then thrust her away from him and turned his back to her, his shoulders sagging dejectedly.
Kathleen thought he was finished, but he continued gruffly, "I hid from the world in a pit underground because of my sins and this cursed face." He turned back toward her and approached like a stalking cat, tears gleaming in his eyes. "I wear the mask so that even I don't have to look at myself." Shame covered the unmasked part of his face. "I used my face to scare people, to threaten and use them. I'm a fool to think I can get away from the curse of this face, and a fool to think these children will accept me."
He shook his head. "No, Kathleen, I should go." He turned away from her again, the saddest-looking individual Kathleen had seen in a long time.
She walked up behind him and touched his back. "You have to stop running, Erik. I have a feeling you have been running most of your life. Give me a chance! Give yourself a chance! I watched you scream at God to take your life and scream at Him again when He didn't. Perhaps He has something He wants you to do here. If you must have a cause to justify your existence, Erik, there is no better one than these children."
She drew her hand away, ready to part, but left him with one final thought. "Perhaps you can live part of your missed childhood through these children, and Erik, I think you would find that children have the biggest, most accepting hearts in the world."
Erik felt exhausted after she left and wandered out into the small plot of grass behind the cottage and dropped onto the lush green carpet. Overhead, a patch of blue sky and wispy clouds showed through the nearly-bare tree limbs. Never in all of his thirty years had he looked at cloud shapes before, but he did now as he let his mind wander. He needed to think about what he should do, but he pushed the troublesome thoughts away and just imagined.