"I don't understand," he could still hear him say, "why is death a feminine, when it's always depicted male?" He wrote it down nonetheless.
His amber eyes make a full circle around his skull, as his paper thin lips twisted into a wickedly annoyed smirk. "I don't know, daroga, just write it down."
The rose scent was thick around them and the smoke of the hookah made it hard to see. He concluded it had been a terrible idea to teach the old man French, when his thick head refused to simply accept things as they were. When he set foot in Tehran, he never questioned why each curve of the letters was the way it was. Language was, in any way, a human construct, a contract between conscious beings to avoid anarchy. And he, the anarchist, if there ever was one, didn't question it.
The pest insisted though, "I just don't get it. Death is a strong, insurmountable opponent. How could a delicate being, such as a woman, bring upon such destruction?"
He refused to reply, only to be met with more opposition. He decided, instead, a poetic approach would be more confusing to his friend, rendering him silent at last;
"Perhaps, it's your perspective that's wrong, Daroga. Men like you, like my native French, do not wish to leave this world as brave soldiers, to fight a never-ending fight with a cruel and unbeaten opponent. Would it not be better, if death was the face, the arms of the beloved, wrapping them into the tightest embrace, the mellow female voice singing them to sleep, with the hope of eternity?"
The Persian raised his thick, dark eyebrow. "For a loveless creature, Erik, I must admit you're quite the poet of lovers."
His emaciated shoulders agreed with a raise. "I can sing of the greatest loves better than anyone, after all."
The daroga turned to inspect him more intensely now, leaning all the way forward, as if any words could be lost in the space between them. "Can it be true, Erik? There never was a…"
"A what, you git?" His demonic voice rose an octave, while remaining a whisper.
"There never was a woman? Who will carry you to the netherworld, if not the woman you loved?"
The little Sultana waited. He wasn't rushing, but stood, anyway, and thought, despite himself, if it could be her that he would meet at the gates of Hell, once his time would come.
"No, never. I don't know why death is a female, Nadir. I'll ask when I see her."
His eyes shot across from him on the white wall, where, at her height, still trickled the scarlet drops that betrayed her attempts of despair, and his chest tightened bizarrely. Out of instinct, he searched for his mask, even though he knew it had been long lost after the whole affair.
Cet amour me tue, he remembered from an aria, whose name he could not tell.
All it took was a deep breath, the deepest he would ever take, savouring the feeling of his lungs swelling one last time. Where could she be? Would she ever again bare to think of her poor, unhappy Erik, the dog that worshipped her? What would he not give to be able to bury himself in her arms, to have her voice sing him off to the Champs of Elysium.
After so many years, he finally understood, why his Death was a woman.