Erik 1853: Part VI

Odessa had become a port to be reckoned with in the years that the Ottomans and Russians let it flourish before sweeping down to claim the city for their own and destroying everything instead. In the good years, there were Jewish, French, Italian, and Russian sections of the city. Each had its own lures, but none melded peacefully into the next. It would be easy to disappear in a city such as this — to be forgotten.

After choosing Odessa, I made my way into its heart disguised as a wealthy Turk. Languages came to me as naturally as music, for there was a kind of melody in each language that allowed anyone to learn them if they only listened. The ease with which I slipped into my new life scared and delighted me. I found lodgings and blessed solitude in an affluent section. The darker parts of town instantly preyed upon my weakness with their clandestine hashish parlours.

It was in one such obscure section of Odessa that Esmée found me; rumpled and oblivious in a sordid room near the back of a well-frequented parlour. She whispered into my ear, 'The Grand Magician is defeated at last by an unassuming plant.' Her French was rough and tender on my ears. Then she helped me to stand, faltering a little under my uncooperative limbs.

I mocked her tone. 'The Grand Magician wishes to be left alone.'

'To die, to sleep, perchance to dream,' she quoted Shakespeare without missing a beat.

'Dreams are far more enticing than nightmares, my dear,' I allowed her to lead me out into the cool November night. 'Where are you taking me?'

She said nothing and simply walked me past closed shops, sleeping guards, and quiet rooms. The feel of her sharp shoulder against my ribs pained me, as it told me she had not fared any better on her own than under the strong hand of the khanum. I noticed little else but her steady hand and the sound of our footsteps echoing off the smooth walls of structure after structure.

'Again,' I started, coughing a little from the smoke that lingered in my lungs, 'where are you taking me?'

'Erik, this is for your own good,' she spoke and I detected the slightest bit of nervousness in her answer.

'Back to the shah?' There was no fear in my voice even though I wanted to be back in Persia nearly as much as I wanted to be tortured to death in one of the devices I had designed. Though as the architect of such an atrocity, I did stand a better chance of escape than some other unassuming waif.

'No. Even your return to Persia by my hand would not keep me from a similar death.' She laughed with the force of her answer. 'I found the daroga, your Nadir Khan, before I made my last escape. He told me of his concern for your well-being and made mention of a promise he had asked you to make before you left. Have you kept your promise, Erik?'

That damn promise.

I had kept my word as closely as I was able to under the circumstances of my existence. Those men that died on my flight from Tehran, at the snap of the Punjab lasso, were not innocents. They were threats. I nodded, wearily, 'Yes, I've kept it.'

'I owe Monsieur Khan a substantial amount of money,' she said, smiling a little, 'if you're telling the truth.'

A man held open a door for us. 'Take him downstairs and to the left.'

'Thank you, Pierre.' She continued to steer me into the cellar of a rather odd structure. It had been built away from most of the other buildings in the square. I didn't have to inspect it long before I discovered that it was, or more likely had been, an asylum. The walls were white-washed and the floors scrubbed clean. In every corridor we passed, I detected the strong smell of ammonia. So strong that it cleared my nostrils and replaced the soothing scent of hash with a putrid stench.

I ambled along beside her, for some reason I trusted where she led me, though I had no idea what that meant. Finally we rounded a corner and she took me through a thick metal door. It, too, had been painted white. Large chips, long since scrapped off, showed how the heavy door had been closed and bolted over the years. Esmée pulled me inside and pushed me to lay down upon the institutional mattress, which smelled of vomit and urine. By that time, I was too far intoxicated to make any protest.

Esmée touched my face where the mask ended and my hairline began. 'No,' she spoke quietly, 'no fever.'

The last thing I heard before oblivion took over was, 'Forgive me, Erik. It is for your own good.'

o . O . o

When I woke I found my arms and legs had been securely bound. Yes, this was an asylum prepared for the likes of something like me. Such treatment I could not allow. Not now. Not ever! Instinctively, I strained and squirmed in vain to be released from the bindings that held me. My wrists, though thin and nimble, were rubbed raw while I continued to try and free myself from the leather fetters. She had done her job well: waiting until I was deliriously self-medicated before bringing me here. Sober, a prison could never have held me.

No sunlight or moonlight spilled across the concrete floor, for there were no windows, save for the small slit in the door. It mocked me, while I struggled to detect some clue as to what time of day — or rather, what day at all — I awoke to find myself.

The flicker of torches in the hallway gave way to a shadow looming in front of the door. I bit my lip. I would not call them for help. No reason for begging. The slide of the lock, the push of the door; Esmée entered the room carrying a tray. She walked towards me with a firm resolve set upon her beautiful face, while all I could do was turn my head away and stare at the cracks in the wall. They were illuminated perfectly because she had left the door open. Did she trust her captive was so obviously beaten?

The lines that ran the length of the room, at first glance, were without any discernable pattern. She laid the tray on the ground and I began to see beauty in the way the dark cracks formed something of a spider's web across the wall.

'Did you sleep, Erik?' Her voice sent shivers down my arms and legs. It had imprinted itself on my brain as a testament to how close I let her know me. Too close. Too close.

Nothing scathing or brave came to my lips, such lips as I have, and so I said nothing and continued to stare. A mathematical equation started to form within the delineation that ran from right to left. Perhaps the universe spread itself out like this fragmented layer of paint. Chaotic at first, then breaking away to reason and splendour.

'Very well, if you will not answer me I shall simply engage in a one-sided conversation.' The sounds of a heavy object being dragged across the floor followed. 'I've brought you broth and bread and water.'

Reflexively, I said, 'A fitting last supper, one should imagine.'

Esmée sighed. Tenderly, reverently, she propped my head and shoulders up on several more pungent pillows. Plucking the bowl from the ground, she held it near my lips. The smell reminded me of Madeleine — my unforgiving mother — and a home I had not cared to remember for many years. My eyes closed against the memory and I shut my mouth tightly, trying not to choke on the emotions it stirred up.

'It's not poisoned,' Esmée said. I moved not a modicum. She brought the bowl to her own mouth and sipped the steaming brew. 'See, there's nothing wrong with it.'

When the bowl was brought to my mouth again, I remained unwavering. A little of the liquid splashed against my chin. It was warm against my cold skin and caused me to flinch. Esmée wiped it away with a handkerchief.

'Perhaps you are still enjoying the effects of your descent into opiate-inspired bliss.' She gulped down the rest of the contents and began to rip apart the bread, slowly chewing it and then swallowing.

A controlled rage filled my empty stomach. It didn't matter how long she kept me here, once free, I would destroy her. All the details illuminated behind my mind's eye. The spell of murder and blood was broken when she touched my hand.

'I know you don't understand,' she began, tracing the raw marks on my wrist. 'And you may never understand. I want you to know that I accept any consequence of my actions.'

She paused, the torchlight scintillating across her face. 'The genius that you possess needs protection from your wild fancy. It is in my power, at present, to be such a guardian. Sometimes such a task requires sacrifice and I am willing to pay that price if it means your redemption.'

Her eyes returned to my mask. They searched for an answer, or some small sign I had heard — accepted? — everything she had said. I remained quiescent. Esmée sighed again, removing her hand from my flesh.

The chair was returned to its place against the far wall and she gathered the tray with its half-consumed meal into her arms. Esmée shut and bolted the door behind her and I escaped the prison of my body for the wide-expanses of my increasingly lucid mind. The last comforts the pipe had given me were making their dilatory way from my bloodstream. Nightmares would follow: images dredged up from a lifetime of horror. What kind of sacrifice could possibly equal what I endured from the recesses of my damaged subconscious?

o . O . o

Minutes, hours, days — what did it matter! — passed by outside of my dark room devoid of any natural light. It occurred to me on several occasions that I could be quite happy without sunlight. It was rather comical to escape from the beautifully intense sun of Persia and be confined to a chill damp room where I might well die. Laughter escaped my throat before I had a chance to check it.

I felt as though I would go mad if left inside the cage I found myself in. That too made me chuckle. The most recent wave of pain wracked my body as my veins screamed out to be filled with the ethereal release of hash. Dry-mouth followed and then accursed sparks of light filled my vision. Perhaps she had broken me enough to beg. For that which made me forget, I would plead. I would offer her my soul for its promised release.

Esmée appeared, like some perverted version of the living nurse, Florence Nightingale. She cleaned me like a child. I felt certain there were sores beginning to form along my spine while I remained strapped to an uncomfortable bed. Never once did I look her in the eye while she performed these 'duties'. There was too much shame in the situation. Mostly, I was ashamed of being so dependent upon forgetting my past. Hadn't someone once told me I was above addiction? Was it Nadir?

The girl with the rubicund tresses changed my soiled clothes and dragged the chair so she could sit close beside me. She took her place on the seat, folding her willowy legs beneath her.

'Would you like me to read to you, Erik?' A ripple of pain went through my body. The spasms were uncontrollable and again I felt helpless in her presence. 'It may help with the symptoms of your withdrawal.'

Gritting my teeth, I gave no response; merely turned my head back to the cracks in the wall that suddenly became a simulacrum to my captor. Her eyes settled nicely above her cheekbones. A delicate jaw line disappeared into the long curve of her throat. If I could get my arm free, then my fingers would easily clasp, and break, that delicate neck.

'This story was a favourite of the shah,' she began, opening a musty tome on her knee. 'He thought the poetry painted a pretty picture of his garden. Never did he imagine the lines hid a love story older than those statues that decorated his walks.'

Without meaning to, I began to pay attention to the words as she read from the book. They were not in French but Persian. Omar Khayyam. It was always to him that she returned like a dove. No, she was not a dove! She was a daemon who fancied pretty words. Violent emotion filled my chest and as I opened my mouth to tell her exactly where she could place that old book of verse, she came to the part about the nightingale and the rose.

'… the Nightingale cries to the Rose / That sallow cheek of hers to incarnadine,' she recited and the lines were given a fervid life. And much as I tried to ignore it, parts of me were beginning to understand what she was giving me. How she had saved me from a wasted life. I had plans and dreams and if it weren't for the mask, the world would sit comfortably in the palm of my hand.

Another lesson sat patiently behind this self-serving one: without the delusions created under the influence, I might be able to escape long enough to make something of a life for myself. Mask be damned!

I watched her silhouette close the book and listened while she got up to leave. 'Find your rose, no matter how you go about it, for therein lies your salvation.'

Then she slipped a needle into my arm and I remembered nothing of her departure. When I awoke, the leather cuffs had been removed, the door remained wide open, and the torches flared brightly in the corridor. Standing was difficult, my muscles tensed and burned, once upright I noticed a new change of clothes and a piece of parchment sitting on the chair.

A neat script I'd come to know as Esmée's flowed across the paper:

Erik,

When you wake I shall be far away from this city and your wrath. I hope that you find it in yourself to forgive me, should our paths ever cross in future. I held you captive for three weeks. It was long enough, I think, for the chemicals to make their way from your brilliant mind. Even though I did, in the end, have to drug you again to ensure my escape.

However, now in your unsullied state you may find my actions had purpose and were altruistic. Nadir saw something worth saving in you, as did I. It went beyond what you conceal beneath your mask. Neither of us pities you. I could say that I don't fear you, but we both know I'd be lying.

I must thank you for what you've given me. Until you changed everything I thought I knew — everything I needed to know — about hate and love and fidelity, I was a prisoner of the khanum. I was blind. You opened my eyes to look beyond what I am given as truth. There is good in you, Erik, and I've seen it.

In time you may find it easy to forgive me. Then again, perhaps not.

Khodâfez, dustæm

I crushed the note in my hand and threw it into the fire, which cleansed me instantly of any ill-will I had towards the girl. I had become everyone else's Angel, but anyone who tried to be mine ended up broken or dead. I would never allow it to happen again. Ever.

The end.

A/N: It was always my intention to write something that could easily be slipped into the canon of Susan Kay's novel, Phantom. And while I know many people are against E/OW, I feel that this isn't really an E/OW. There's mutual respect and a little sexual attraction (it is Kay's Erik, after all) between the two, yet Erik and Esmée were never meant to go off into the sunset to live happily ever after. Instead, I felt it was a chance to explore how he was able to kick the hash habit and play in Persia. I do hope that anyone who has read this far has enjoyed this story — even if it wasn't quite what you'd expected. Please leave a comment (concrit is always welcome!) and thank you very very much for reading along for over a year! Ava