Chapter 5: Thinking of the Future

With October came the coldest autumn Nadir had experienced. Five years in Europe, and he still was unaccustomed to the changing of the seasons. But this was beyond his preference to heat, even the Parisians noticed the cold.

The remains of the opera's lowest cellar often become cold at night from outside drafts carried over the lake. The weather was turning frigid as summer slept, and now Nadir required an overcoat even for a brief visit. The home's man-made walls glittered with frost every morning; especially the walls built into the surrounding limestone. It dampened the ornate paper lining the rooms and set Erika ablaze every time. This would lead to an hour of Erika lamenting the weather, while Nadir was made to dry the wallpaper before it stained.

Being down in that damp icebox made his joints ache. He could see how living in that house affected her, and it worried him. When she mentioned the cold keeping her from sleeping, he provided more blankets from his flat. When she shivered, he added firewood to the stove. When ice appeared on the edge of the lake, that's when he decided to act.

By his estimation the child was due in February, during the worst of winter. If this autumn was any signal, it was a brutal season coming. Nadir implored Erika to leave the opera to itself until the child arrived.

A cat pulled by its tail would've had a calmer reaction.

Nadir compromised with a luncheon. At his flat, where at least for an afternoon the stubborn mule would be someplace warm.

"Are you still not speaking to me?" Nadir asked as they rode in the cab.

Erika sat with her chin in her hand and her eyes fixed outside the window. Nadir's large overcoat hung off her frame and one of the spare blankets draped across her lap. A scarf hid her face in lieu of the porcelain mask. She'd left it behind for the day, comfortable without it in Nadir's presence. She hadn't spoken to him since their earlier argument and she didn't acknowledge him now.

Nadir's lips pressed together in a line. He turned his own attention to the world gliding past.

The first dusting of snow had come surprisingly – worryingly – early. Even late in the morning, white specks lingered between the cobbles in the road. A few straggling flakes whipped by the glass.

"I refuse to enjoy myself on this excursion," Erika finally spoke.

"I've not forced you into doing anything, my friend." Nadir held the pile of folded blankets at his side when the cab stopped to allow pedestrians to cross the street. "You came of your own choice."

"After you prodded me into coming." Erika cast him a hateful glare before returning her eyes to the window.

"Erika, let's not do this again. I don't have the energy."

"Oh, yes, you don't have the energy," Erika sneered. "You bear such a heavy cross! No employment, no dependents, no ailing body. You martyr, you!"

"Enough!" Nadir bit back. "What has you in such a sour mood?"

"Everything, Nadir!" Erika snapped, finally turning to face him. "Everything!"

The letters to management were never sent. They were sitting at that very moment in Erika's stationary, untouched. Ink trapped under her fingernails instead came from letters penned to Monsieur Daaé. They'd been corresponding for the past month, with his letters arriving at the post office for Erika to retrieve. In them, her pupil expressed his concern for the lack of contact with his tutor – which she explained away as a prolonged illness. It wasn't entirely untrue, after all.

It was friendly conversation for a while. She expressed her desire to see him perform that season, but he announced he'd decided to retire from the winter season. He explained he had chosen not to perform in the upcoming show, although he'd been offered a high-profile role.

Christian went on to tell his teacher that he was leaving for his homeland until summer. In fact, he had trusted her enough to admit the reason: he was eloping with the daughter of one of the theater's patrons. That letter now lay in shredded pieces at the bottom of a wastebasket.

Fifteen minutes seated in tense silence, and the cab rattled to a stop. The street corner was busy that time of day, and Erika made sure her scarf was in place. Nadir stepped off first, his arms full of blankets, and offered his hand to Erika as she stepped down. She ignored it, gripping the edge of the cab door until she was firmly on the sidewalk.

Erika limped into Nadir's parlor and dropped herself in the nearest armchair to catch her breath. The two-story climb to the apartment had left her inexplicably winded. She removed the scarf that had become too suffocating. Shortness of breath was a punishment for anything strenuous, further convincing Erika her strength was being drained each passing week. Worst of all, her boots were pinching tight – making foot travel a sore ordeal.

Nadir latched the door and dumped the armful of his blankets on the loveseat. "What would you like me to prepare?"

"You choose, I'm willing to eat anything." Erika had to set her boots on the coffee table to loosen their straps. Bending over herself was on the verge of impossible. "Where is your washroom?"

"Through the salon, down the hall and around the corner."

The flat was more fetching than Erika imagined, though the posh district it was in should have told her that much. Wood paneling traced the lips of walls and leaped over doorframes as she passed them in the hallway. The air she lived in was the scent of wet, dissolving stone and candle smoke. Here, it was cedar and bay leaves. The man had done well for himself since Mazandaran, and he'd clearly refused to lower his standards of living.

Just before the turn in the hallway, there was a door left ajar. Stopping to nudge the door open a few inches more, Erika saw a bedpost and realized her mistake. Before she turned away, however, she spotted something below the curtain-drawn window. Sitting no more than an inch off the ground was a worn-out rocking cradle. Two cracked supports pitched the wooden box at a skewed angle, and there was no mattress to be seen on the inside.

Returning a few minutes later from the washroom, Erika stole another look at the little object in the bedroom. There it was: the first tangible proof outside herself that she was carrying a baby. It made her shudder. Not only because it was an infant's item, but because of the sorry state it was in.

"I thought you were excited about this child's arrival," she said, pulling shut the collar of the overcoat.

"What makes you question that fact?" Nadir called from the open kitchen door.

Erika kneeled to arrange firewood in the hearth. "That pitiful excuse of a cradle. With all you're doing to ensure this creature's safety, I expected a bit more effort from you in providing for its needs." She grabbed a tinder box and set fire to the kindling. The kitchen was quiet. "Nadir?"

The Persian entered the salon carrying a platter of finger sandwiches, his expression smooth as ever. "Erika, let me tend the fire. Please, help yourself."

She placed herself in the loveseat and tasted one of the sandwiches. Cucumber. She had to smile – he must have exhausted all his resources for this luncheon, the luncheon she simply had to attend. The first was finished quickly and Erika found herself reaching for a second.

"So," she said, "you're not going to explain yourself? Can't spare a few extra francs to give your babe a comfortable bed?"

Nadir stood from prodding the fire, cracking his spine as he straightened. He massaged the nape of his neck, looking to the ceiling. "I cannot."

"What do you mean 'you cannot'?"

"I cannot, Erika. My savings are bleeding out, and you know work has been dreadful for me to find in this country."

Even after five years in France, he was still living off his savings from Mazandaran. It wasn't for lack of trying he couldn't find employment. He had been looking since he arrived, but...no one seemed willing to trust him with even the most menial of tasks.

Nadir continued: "There is a year's worth of rent left. I didn't wish to burden you with this, not now of all times."

"Didn't wish to burden me?" Erika questioned, adding another sandwich to her napkin. "Nadir, how long have you known?"

"It wasn't such a strain until...well..." he motioned towards her.

Erika ate half of a sandwich in one bite. Her morning sickness had given way to ravenous hunger in the last month. So, even a meal as scarce as this was devoured with gusto.

"You've...astounded me with your stupidity," she said. "I should be angry with you, but I've exhausted that energy elsewhere. What man willingly brings an infant into his home when he knows he cannot care for it?"

"I can find work if I keep searching," Nadir insisted. He seated himself next to her on the loveseat, but she leaned away from him. "You could pen a letter of recommendation, forge a signature, or..." He trailed away from that thought, overcome by another. "Why do you care?"

Erika shrugged, wiping her hands clean. "Because it's rather pitiful you could care for Reza, but not for this child."

"Don't hide behind insults," Nadir said. "Tell me why you're concerned with this."

"Because I had more faith in you than this," Erika said, flourishing an arm. "You had me fooled that you were capable, that this child wouldn't be better off dead. I'm starting to reconsider."

A stormy wind rattled the windows. Nadir rested his arms over his knees, then upturned his palms – as if doing so would beckon the words forth. "You say that as though you haven't reconsidered before."

Before speaking, Nadir had no proof in the slightest that his statement was true. But after, when Erika turned to him with such a startled look in her eye, he knew it was. "I have to thank you," he offered her a sad smile. "Thank you for keeping your word."

Shaken, Erika gave a stiff nod. "You knew."

"You can be predictable as the time," Nadir chuckled. "I can hope, but you're the Angel of Death through and through."

After that exchange, the two kept to themselves for the next hour. An autumn gale whipped the outside walls, warning that a cold front was on its way. Erika's options were to prolong her awkward visit in the flat or go back to a freezing cellar. Every throw pillow in the salon ended up in a nest on the loveseat to give Erika a cozy place to settle with a book. She wasn't paying too much attention to the words on the pages, it was only to disguise her shame from the other person in the room.

Nadir periodically disappeared to other parts of the home, going about his business. When he settled into an armchair with his own book to occupy his time, the fireplace had warmed the apartment considerable. Yet, he noticed Erika hadn't removed the overcoat he'd lent her.

"Aren't you warm?"

"I am," she said, keeping her face in the pages, "but I'd rather not have you gawk at me."

"Oh, you know I would do no such thing. I saw you this morning and thought nothing of it."

"I still prefer not to look at myself."

Pregnancy, a cruel mistress, didn't wait too long to show its more unflattering side. Erika's wardrobe was rapidly becoming useless. The dress shirts and trousers, tailored for men by nature, did little to accommodate her swelling body. The one she wore now was as loose as it could be, and still it was obscenely tight on her. Hiding everything under a coat was easier.

It was early evening, but the clouds hid the sunset. The windows rattled again. Wind whistled through the drafts. Erika gasped in a breath, but not from the kiss of the cold.

Nadir heard and looked up from his book. "Are you alright?"

"It's nothing." Erika wet her finger and turned a page, but her uneasy shift in position told that something was off.

Nadir did not even realize his back grew stiff. He sat up, keeping his book open on his lap. "Erika, if you're in pain you need to tell me right now. Remember our contract, you promised to tell me if anything could be wrong."

"Calm yourself, nothing is wrong." She pressed a hand into her swollen stomach. It felt like feathers were brushing the inside of her abdomen. It was like nothing she'd felt before, and it was disgusting. It was easy to imagine a worm slithering through her intestines with how foreign and...alive...the movement was. "I think it was the child."

"Moving?" Nadir asked quietly, hesitantly creeping closer. The babe had never kicked before, at least not around him, or that he knew. Perhaps Erika simply did not tell him.

"Yes, but it's faint," Erika said, pausing a moment to try and feel the soft flutter through the coat. "Odd, I thought un-borns slept in the womb."

Nadir grinned, standing beside her. "Oh, no, this is a good sign. This means they're growing stronger. Expect much more of this to come," he said. "Is this the first time?" Erika nodded.

He was suddenly so compelled to be near her. By chance, their baby decided to make itself known for the first time, and he was there to witness it. In spite of the mental burden and the arguments, Nadir was reminded of what he had to look forward to. He was an expectant father again, and this remarkable woman was the mother of his child. Regardless if she wanted to admit that or not.

Erika craned her neck to look at the pages Nadir was reading. Inked there were small diagrams on how to properly swaddle an infant. Tossing her entertainment aside, she took the book from Nadir and began leafing through it. There were passages and descriptive diagrams on how to bathe and change an infant, among other basic childcare subjects. She found it odd. Didn't Nadir already know such things? He had raised Reza entirely on his own, surely he didn't need to be re-taught?

"Why read this?" she asked.

The Persian sighed. "A courtesy to my unborn child, as well as a necessity."

Long years had passed since he was robbed of fatherhood – his beautiful Reza, the light of his eyes, the joy of his heart. Unwillingly his soul was stirred with fear, and he wished to be armed against any devils that may rear up. Perhaps then, he would make no mistakes. Perhaps then, he would get to see his babe grow.

He hadn't been so uneasy during Rookheya's time, although it was his first experience with anything of the nature. But his wife had been in good health, with enough meat on her bones to remain strong despite the physical strain. Erika was the complete opposite. In that volume alone, he'd learned of so many hazards only related to her body type. It...it wasn't just the child he was fearful for. It wasn't just the child's health he was wanting to be prepared for.

Nadir fiddled with the wedding ring still adorning his finger. He watched Erika shut the book and set it aside as well. "It's late," he said. "Would you like an escort home?"

"In the morning," Erika said. She stretched as much as she could. "I think I can leave things to themselves for one night. You were right, a warm place to sleep will do me well."

Nadir couldn't believe is ears. "The Mirage admits I'm right," he chuckled and handed her the spare blankets. "I can now die a fulfilled man."

Erika smiled back at him as she clumsily rolled onto her side. She rearranged the pillows to better support her heavying frame. "If your child keeps me awake at all, that can be arranged."

"That's why tonight, I sleep with the door locked."