Thanks for your patience! Here it is at last... As a bit of trivia, the Army of the Loire had by this point managed to take back and hold Orleans, but their accomplishments were somewhat oversold in Paris. The other armies in the provinces had not made much progress.

Chapter 62 — Worlds Within Worlds

What a difference less than two weeks could make, Madame Giry reflected as she tossed the last few lumps of precious coal — actual coal! — into the stove's hungry maw. She shut the fire door and straightened her spine, bone by bone, letting the heat ease movement back into each cramped muscle. Such luxury, this. Warmth and food; a bubbling cassoulet on the stove instead of bread with congealed dripping, and a pot of fresh coffee later if the fire lasted; supper, then quiet conversation late into the night with her daughter and Christine after she returned from the Variétés. Perhaps Erik also, if he chose to stay.

How was it possible, that in the midst of so much chaos and suffering, among the queues and the rumbling forts, when rations shrank daily and one could not walk down the street without seeing a coffin, they had returned to a life that belonged in another time? Absurd to think so, but she could not shake the sense that this peace was something almost magical; that it had been born from the spell cast by Christine's concert and was like her music, a miracle. A candle in the dark.

Outside, November was drawing to a close, and the days grew ever shorter and darker. Gaslight was gone; the heating also. The building had become so icy that they seldom removed their coats even indoors, and the apartment was lit by a single oil lamp which Madame Giry now carried with her from counter to sink to stove as she tidied up the kitchen.

And yet, not even this descent into hunger and cold seemed a sign of imminent surrender. Life endured. Christine had moved from the Folies to the grander stage of the Variétés; Meg sketched the audiences and the queues for tickets; even little Marie played on in Montmartre. The Prussians might be waiting for them to grow despondent, but all over Paris, theatres were reopening. Where there was art and theatre, there had to be hope. Or if not, there could at least be music.

Who could tell; if the siege went on much longer, there might even be ballet.

And just how much longer could it go on? To believe the official papers, Paris was about to burst forth to join hands with the victorious army of the Loire. All the delays and disasters were simply part of governor Trochu's secret plan. Le plan de Trochu, people in the streets now called it whenever anything remotely mysterious occurred. No bread at the bakery again? Ah, it's in the secret plan. Cannon being moved south when last week they were moving north? That would be the plan also. It was a wonder the plan did not yet require its own salary and a box on the grand tier.

Madame Giry nudged the lid a crack and gave the pot a stir. The escaping cloud of savoury steam assaulted her senses, making her giddy with suppressed hunger, and she hurried from it to the dining room, holding up the lamp to light her way.

They were unimaginably fortunate to have a good meal each day, she thought as she closed the door behind her. The week's ration of three chunks of tough sinewy meat would have sufficed only to keep their dignity while they starved. The remainder of their meals, from dried vegetables to rice to coffee, were prizes collected from friends: from the house of Monsieur De Gas, where Meg was still welcomed although the artist himself spent most of his time on the ramparts; from the house of young Henri Guyon, who had started to add parcels of the most impractical foodstuffs to the art catalogues he still insisted on sending; from the convalescing Vicomte.

The greatest part of their comfort, however, they owed to the daily expeditions Erik had been making into the city. This much was no miracle, but the hard work of a man determined to survive, and to keep alive all those he cared about — and that in itself was a transformation.

It was extraordinary to see how this damaged, once dangerously self-absorbed man bent all his formidable will to a cause outside himself. He spent gruelling long hours combing the markets for food so that Christine and the rest of them might eat; he brought in loads of firewood that he had chopped from the remnants of trees in some unfortunate park; he humbled himself before officials to collect ration cards and then found shadier characters willing to exchange those cards for the more rare, precious items like a few potatoes or even an egg. These past few days he had somehow contrived to find coal and oil, so that they might be able to cook a hot meal and have a light in the evening. Whatever comforts they enjoyed were due to him, and yet he seemed to want no greater praise than the smiles Christine bestowed on him.

Not that Christine was shy about expressing her gratitude. Her face glowed with genuine pleasure at the evidence of each new successful errand, and she made no effort to hide her feelings. Nor did she remove the ring to which she had no legal claim, but wore it openly just as though it were a wedding band. It was a brazenly dangerous folly, this renewed non-courtship of theirs, but God help her, Madame Giry did not have the heart to interfere. To see the two of them together, heads bent over Christine's music book in a discussion of something only they seemed to understand, she could almost believe that Gustave's old tales of the Angel of Music were true — that somewhere beyond the war and the darkness, there existed a sublime and awesome force that spoke through music, and was capable of healing souls.

"Maman?"

Madame Giry started, only just keeping hold of the lamp. Long shadows swayed across the dining-table. "Meg! I did not hear you return." She placed the lamp on the table and turned up the wick a notch, revealing the oval of her daughter's face in the coppery light. "Why are you sitting in the dark?"

"I did not like to go in the kitchen; it smells too delicious in there. I set the table instead." Meg sat with her chin propped on her hands, looking up at her mother over layers of the scarf she had not removed. Her face was changing, Madame Giry noticed, acquiring stronger lines of cheekbones and jaw. She was growing up. Or perhaps only growing thinner.

She pulled out a chair for herself and sat across from Meg. "Thank you, my dear. How is Monsieur De Gas — he is on duty tonight?"

"Yes; all this week. He says it's bitter cold on the ramparts. Victorine has been knitting socks and things for him; she gave me some wool she had left over, so we could knit ourselves something warm."

Madame Giry raised her brows. "Did she? That is… kind of her."

"Very. So I didn't tell her none of us can knit."

"Ahh. For a moment I wondered if I was about to discover another of your hidden talents."

Meg laughed ruefully, "I wish I could knit. It would be a more rewarding pastime right now than drawing. The balloonist this morning wouldn't take any sketches at all, after I waited two hours in the rain, all because someone from the government gave him a whole packet of documents. Monsieur Nadar promised he will have another balloon ready this time next week, but that's another week without pay."

Madame Giry acknowledged her frustration in silence. "Even so," she said after a moment, "you will still draw."

"Of course. The city is incredible, like a giant army camp. I will never have enough time to draw it all."

"What does Monsieur De Gas say to these drawings then?"

"Not much. Perhaps he approves; it's hard to tell with him." Meg lifted her chin from her hands and raised one hand, studying the shadows made by her fingers on the empty plate before her. She sighed. "Do you suppose this is how the old masters saw when they painted? Everything in a pool of light, and the world just a black background… Ugh," — she wriggled in her seat as her stomach gave a sudden growl, "I'm ravenous!"

Madame Giry reached for the lamp to go back to the kitchen. "We will eat soon. Supper is almost ready. And Christine should be back any minute, with her… with Erik."

"...Yes," Meg said slowly. "With her Erik."

Madame Giry guessed at the source of her preoccupation. "Henri Guyon sent his carriage for you again?"

"Yes." Meg returned her probing gaze steadily. "But he did not come himself, it was only his coachman. And you know it is safer than walking alone in the dark all the way from Monsieur De Gas' house."

"Safer in some ways." Madame Giry watched her child's discomfort with a deep ache. In truth, this was a poor time to be young. And she could hardly raise objections to Meg encouraging a suitor when practicalities demanded that they accept help from any source.

Meg frowned, then seemed to set the whole matter aside with the utter indifference that let Madame Giry breathe a sigh of relief. Really; one ill-considered entanglement in this family was more than enough.

"Here." Reaching into her pocket, Meg pulled out two envelopes and offered both to her mother. "I picked up these on the way upstairs. This one is for you. The other came from Montmartre; it was left at the theatre for Erik. Marie brought it to Monsieur De Gas' house, knowing I might pass it on."

Madame Giry held them nearer the light to see, and an almost forgotten thrill ran through her: letters! She brushed her thumb along the sealed edge of the first envelope, feeling the paper's reassuring solidity.

"News from outside," she marvelled. "After all this time."

"A pigeon returned two days ago. The poor thing must have been half frozen in this weather. Will you open yours?"

Madame Giry peered at the addresses more closely. She did not recognise the writing on the envelope but that was only to be expected; the letters that came by carrier bird had to be enlarged from their minute photographed size and re-posted within the city. The address, however, was familiar enough.

"It is from Perros." She fought back a wave of emotion she had not expected. So many weeks had passed since she had last received a reply to the letters she dutifully sent with every balloon that she had begun to think of them as nothing more than her own meditations, tossed into the storm like a message in a bottle. How strange to see a reply! She wondered how Monsieur Duchamp and his sister were faring, and whether the handful of words such letters were allowed would be enough to tell her anything at all.

Meg was examining the other letter curiously in her hands. "This one is heavy," she said to her inquiring look. "Good paper, look. And the writing here…"

She was right, Madame Giry saw at once. The letter, addressed to M. Andersson, Rue Fontenelle, did not at all resemble the slim missives of the pigeon post, but looked exactly as a regular, formal letter of the days before the siege. Plainly it had been sent from within Paris itself. She felt a stirring of disquiet.

"How long ago did this arrive?"

"I don't know. Marie said Louise brought it over, all in a huff as he's not been seen at his lodgings for days. Why, who do you think could be writing to him? It looks official."

Madame Giry gave no reply, but took both letters over to the sideboard and dropped them into the drawer. She shut it and paused a moment, considering. How many people knew of a 'M. Erik Andersson' at Rue Fontenelle? Hundreds, perhaps; half of Montmartre. Yet how many of those would have cause to write to him so formally, and on fine paper? Meg was right, it did look official. And he had already stood trial, if only in Montmartre… She looked at the drawer again. Perhaps it was merely a bill or a letter from his banker.

"Maman? What is it?"

She was relieved to hear the squeaking of carriage-springs outside and the sound of a door being slammed.

"Help me serve the supper, Meg. That would be Christine and Erik returning."

o o o

A peculiar idea: to have enough. Enough not by someone else's reckoning but by the contentment he felt within this small, impermanent, perfect island of peace. This life bore no resemblance to his fantasies: there was to be no white-veil wedding; no comfortable residence that he, a famed architect, had designed for his young bride; no evenings of listening to music from their private box; no carriage rides in the Bois. Instead the remnants of the Bois de Boulogne lay as a grey wasteland of mud and army tents, and the rest of his picturesque lunacy had dissolved into images that were as preposterous in the wartime city as a Meyerbeer elephant in Montmartre.

And yet what he did have was enough to eclipse any dream.

Christine was not his wife, but she had taken him for her own and raised him to stand beside her, defying the world to gainsay her. Erik Andersson was her acknowledged paramour, her protector, the only one permitted the freedom of her dressing-room and a seat at every performance. Perhaps somewhere, Piangi's ghost was having the last laugh — very well then, he was welcome to it. At the Variétés, raised at last onto a proper stage framed by velvet and gold, brightly lit above the gas-deprived dark and chill house, Christine's star blazed hotter than ever. Within a week of signing on, she was headlining the Variétés' dutiful line-up of charity recitals, performing everything from opera to hymns to the low street-songs that Marie taught her, and bringing audiences to their feet night after night.

He did not have a husband's rights, but seemed nonetheless to have acquired a lover's privileges. After every performance, Christine waited for him alone in her dressing-room, with a key in her hand and the music still in her eyes. Stagehands and costumiers stood aside as he entered. It was the first condition Christine had insisted upon when she had agreed to the offer Michaud had proposed: that after she sang she was to be left undisturbed, and her privacy respected. Erik could not decide if he was more embarrassed or thrilled at how neatly she had created a place for him: with his role so firmly declared there was really nothing to do but accept. He liked to imagine that he would not have tried to conceal himself within the theatre should tickets prove difficult, and that he would not have chafed at having to wait patiently while she was gracious to the crowds of wounded officers and gawping admirers through which she navigated her way backstage. But Christine knew him.

And so when he knocked on her door after every performance, she swivelled in her seat and smiled, and spoke his name. That alone would have been enough to sustain him for the rest of his life. That she did it dressed in little more than her shift and stockings, clasping her coat to her bare shoulders against the chill, filled him with a heady mix of desire and the terrible premonition of loss.

How long could it last? Days? Weeks? How long before the city began to starve in earnest?...

But Christine spoke his name, and welcomed the touch of his hand upon her cheek, and kept her eyes on his when he bared his face and approached to kiss her. Her eagerness was sharp and unfeigned, and when she grasped his hips to join to hers, parting her knees to pull him in closer, he knew no other reality but these few precious moments. Christine tugged his clothing apart, opened his collar, muttered entreaties that drove him too quickly to the brink. The love that poured from him was all he could give, and it was not enough to save them, not nearly enough…

"One day," she lamented tiredly as he helped her dress and collect her things, "there will be peace again. And heating."

At that he had to tip her face to his and kiss her hard, hot as tears. "We can make our own warmth."

"Mmm." Christine laughed softly, wiping the imprint of his kiss from her chin. "And our own peace, too." Then added tentatively, "...And our own music."

"No," he said to that, as he always did, but Christine's only answer was a long, thoughtful look, and a touch of her fingertips to his chest that sealed him to her as firmly as any ring.

"Shall we go home, then?"

It was a separate thrill to conduct her home, past other singers and the flurries of curious nurses in the ambulance downstairs, out of the colonnaded entrance and into what one might have taken for one of the city's last remaining cabs. In fact, the rickety conveyance with its equally rickety driver belonged to an undertaker, but Erik had personally seen to it that the hearse was scrubbed inside and out, and outfitted with brocaded cushions for the comfort of passengers who were not yet beyond all feeling. And at least it had windows, intended for the display of the expensive bouquets within, but just as functional for looking out.

The first time Christine had seen the unusual arrangement he had procured for her, she paused and furrowed her brows, but she did not reject it. And once inside and seated on a pile of cushions, she had declared it to be the most comfortable carriage in all Paris. The horse was thin to the point of gauntness, and incapable of anything faster than a walk, but that only added more gravitas to their slow procession, and there was something to be said for prolonging the pleasure of watching Christine relax. She would sit leaning against the window, looking out into the starry night unbroken by streetlights, and in those moments the two of them might have been travellers in some distant land, rolling across the plains in their caravan.

Tonight, as Christine watched the dark, she hummed very softly, almost beyond hearing. The music was beguiling in its very quietness, swaying, teasing at Erik's thoughts. It was dangerously close to the phrases that had been floating in his own mind. He tried a key change; Christine changed key too. Or had she made the change first?

"There are so many stars," he murmured, trying to push away the distracting harmony.

Christine looked back at him, breaking off mid-phrase. "Hmm?"

"The stars. I never knew one could see so many from Paris."

"Oh — yes. You can see them better now there's no streetlights."

Christine scooted closer to him and Erik lifted one side of his coat to envelop her in its warmth. She held one of his hands between both of hers, removed his glove, then blew on the fingertips to warm them and began to rub warmth back into his cold-stiffened palm.

Erik sat very still, all his awareness converged on the feel of Christine's hands on his. How strange, even now, to think that his comfort mattered to her…

She shifted under the folds of his coat to turn her face to his. "You are very quiet."

He laced his fingers into hers, feeling the solid band of her ring. His ring. "I am counting my blessings."

Was it possible to feel someone smile? He was certain he did, though Christine appeared to be studying the fabric of the cushions. After a moment, her fingers tensed in his and she said without looking up, "Will you stay the night?"

He buried his half-face in her hair, breathing his fear away, and kissed the cold edge of her ear. "And the day."

"And the day after…"

"And the day after that," he agreed. "As long as we both shall live."

Christine turned sharply. "Don't be morbid. Please." She reached over, caught his face between her hands, and thumbed aside the edge of the bandage.

Erik thought to apologise but his punishment appeared to be a deep and thorough kiss, to which he acquiesced whole-heartedly. Christine's tongue cut into him, re-drawing the borders of his mouth, scraping every scar from lips to the inside of his cheek, and for a little while he was entirely hers: her man, made perfect and without sin.

It was enough. It was more than enough.

But damn it all, he could not shake his fear, or the fiery dreams that haunted his nights. In them, Bazeilles was burning, and the Opéra was burning, and all around him the armies closed in.

o o o

"Go on, maman, open it, do! We all want to hear it."

Christine saw the plea for support in Meg's eyes as Madame Giry hesitated, and added her voice to Meg's. "Please, Madame Giry. It has been so long since we've had a letter."

"It is not addressed to all of us," Madame Giry pointed out, but Christine saw she was softening. They were all hungry for news.

Next to her, Erik cleaned his bread-knife on a napkin and wordlessly passed it to Madame Giry to use as a letter opener. His plate, like all of theirs, had been scraped clean to the last smudge, and still, Christine thought she could have cheerfully eaten another whole meal. It was awful to be constantly hungry.

"Very well then," Madame Giry said, accepting the knife.

"No, wait." Meg stopped her hand before she could open the letter, and jumped from her seat. "I'll get some wine. We should celebrate this. Wait!"

She was back a moment later with four glasses and a bottle the best wine they had.

"That was meant for next week," Christine objected, "your name-day!"

Meg shrugged cheerfully as she poured, "Birthdays come every year. I'd rather celebrate that the outside world exists." She grinned, "To the world outside the fortifications!"

"And the world inside them," Erik added quietly. He raised his glass along with the rest of them, but Christine saw he did not drink, and he gripped its stem as if it might snap. Christine brushed her ankle against his under the table, seeking to share touch. Startled, Erik glanced at her, then took a sharp sip. The wine in his glass shimmered ruby-red in the lamplight.

"And to friends," Christine completed the toast. Her mouth tingled.

With careful ceremony, Madame Giry slitted the top of the envelope and withdrew a small note. She held it up to the lamp, squinting to make out the words in the poor light, and read:

To Mme A. Giry, Paris:

How to shrink my grief to twenty words? My poor Marguerite is gone. A fever, nothing more. War seems distant.

—J.-M. Duchamp, Perros-Guirec

A heavy silence settled around the table.

"Oh," Meg said. She sat down. "Oh."

Christine looked helplessly from her to Madame Giry, whose face seemed to have turned to stone. This was the news from the outside world? She could not fit the finality of the letter's terse words into her mind. She recalled Madame Duchamp-Pierot only hazily: an elegant lady with laughing eyes, a widow who presided over the grand house where Madame Giry used to stay with Meg, and where Christine's father had sometimes played… So long ago. Now another fragment of those memories was gone.

Erik reached past his empty plate and picked up the envelope between his fingers, scowling at it as at something foul. "It may be simply a trick. Some crook who thinks you are in the lady's will and would use this letter to collect your inheritance."

Madame Giry took the envelope from him, shaking her head. "I rather doubt it."

"Maman, I'm sorry," Meg murmured. "I liked her very much. I wish we could have visited her again, before the war."

"Well." Madame Giry's voice was tired as she put down the letter, and her eyes were dry. "That is as it is. I might have taken us out of Paris in September as Monsieur Duchamp asked, and had the chance to say good-bye. But that is no use now. At least Monsieur Duchamp is there to handle the necessities."

"I'm sorry too," Christine said quietly, to both of them. She felt them waiting and tried to say something more, perhaps about Heaven and how Madame Pierot was gone to a better place, but found she could not. She'd had a bellyful of these platitudes when her father died.

"It is getting late." Madame Giry rose from the table, her wine barely touched. "It is past time we were all asleep." She headed out of the room, leaving them the lamp, but stopped at the sideboard. The drawer from which she had taken the letter was still ajar.

"Erik." Madame Giry turned to look at him, and something in the way she hesitated made Christine worry. The silence stretched.

"Madame?" Erik prompted. He appeared calm, but Christine felt him brace inwardly, as though he expected a blow.

Madame Giry removed a key from the drawer, holding it up to show him before leaving it on top of the sideboard as she had been doing for the past two weeks. "You are welcome to stay, as always."

Erik inclined his head in thanks. It was becoming an evening ritual, Christine thought, and the thought warmed her right through, chasing away the shadows of grief. She felt a swell of gratitude to Madame Giry that even in the midst of her own private pain, she did not forget them. What might have seemed a pretense of spontaneity was a reminder if acceptance, an understanding.

"Thank you," she said to Madame Giry, with all her heart.

Madame Giry nodded and went on towards her room, moving easily into the darkness.

In their little circle of lamplight, Meg yawned wide and rose to follow her mother. "I'll see you in the morning," she said with a sigh. "Perhaps we'll have better news tomorrow." She glanced at the table. "Oh. The plates…"

"We will clear up," Christine promised, and was suddenly aware of the echo of her words filling the silence. We. She and Erik.

"If you're sure," Meg said, relieved.

After she left, Erik turned to her, pushing his chair back, and Christine caught his kiss full on her lips.

It was a small word, 'we', but it was enough. The plates would have to wait.