Chapter 28
How trying to a bride
are the weary hours of waiting...
-Madame Butterfly, Act I
After reaching the street, they caught a cab back to her appartement straightaway.
Now that they were up in the open air, Christine's head seemed to clear. She recalled that she was angry with him - or at any rate that she ought to be. Smoldering inside her was the fear that he did not truly want to marry her, that this was all some pleasant amusement to him.
Though she was not sure how to broach the subject of their postponed wedding, she could not let it pass; she needed to speak with him about what happened to them now. She could not let things between them regress to the way they had been when they were first engaged - that time had been blissful, yes, but giddy and uncertain.
They sat side by side in awkward silence, still hardly speaking - neither of them truly angry, but still unable to think of anything to say to one another.
When the cab clattered to a stop at her street, they exchanged a few generic words of affection and farewell. She turned and gave him what was meant to be a kiss goodbye.
But it was colder than usual, and they both felt it. They looked at each other for a moment in silence, and both understood one thing: They couldn't leave things like this.
Then, her hand around his. "Will you come up with me?" she said sweetly, turning back, and pulling his head down toward her as he peered out, so the driver couldn't see them. "No-one will see at this time of night."
He hesitated.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Your flatmate...?" he murmured.
The cab horse, impatient, stamped its hooves and blew steam like an idling locomotive. The driver stared over his shoulder at Erik, trying to make out what they were saying.
The hairs on the back of Erik's neck prickled. Though he hated himself for it, he was already planning - indeed, he had planned before the cab had left the Opéra - how he could incapacitate him if he became too inquisitive.
He was an enemy soldier in a world where everyone was a spy.
"No," Christine said, bringing him back to the present, "Babette works nights. That is why I hardly ever speak of her - she and I never see one another. In fact, it is an ideal arrangement."
"Very well." At last Erik haltingly descended, concealing his mask with the collar of his coat.
Christine paid the cabdriver and turned toward her appartement. Erik followed after her eagerly, catching one of her hands in his. To his relief, she did not pull away, but moved closer to him.
Soon they had reached her building. A rat ran in front of them as they crossed the threshold. Erik maneuvered Christine protectively out of the way, looking alarmed, as though it were an immense rabid dog rather than a scraggly rodent.
"Aren't they paying you enough at the Opéra?" he said to her, as they began to mount the six flights of stairs to her appartement.
"Oh, yes," she said. "A little better, at any rate. But why should I spend the money? Besides, there is not a better view in the city, you'll see." She raised a finger knowingly. "They cannot charge more for it because rich people do not want to climb stairs."
He chuckled appreciatively.
As they reached the third floor, suddenly a woman burst out of one of the appartements onto a landing.
Erik ducked into the shadows, hoping he could pass unnoticed. But it was not to be. Women, he had found, were well-attuned to their surroundings. Like him, they were obliged to be.
She squinted suspiciously at his unfamiliar figure in the half-darkness.
With no-one to hide him, he froze in a panic. Normally when faced with danger, he knew what to do. But with people like this who you couldn't simply knock unconscious - he had never struck a woman and he'd vowed he would never sink that low - it wasn't so simple.
Before he could think further, Christine grabbed his shoulders, pulled him into the corner and kissed him deeply - an entirely different kiss, by necessity, from the hesitant one outside the cab just now.
There was a tense moment. Christine, who had not closed her eyes, watched anxiously.
At last the lady turned away from them in disgust, muttering something about 'all these independent young women these days'.
As her footsteps faded away, Christine pulled back and peered down the stairwell. "Madame Lafarge. That's her gotten rid of, the old dragon," she said at last, satisfied.
He smiled at her in a daze, still in awe of her.
"Don't think this means I am not still cross with you," she warned him, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.
"Then I hope you shall be cross with me more often," he said under his breath.
"I shall deal with you later-" She stopped. "What?"
"I did not say anything." He smiled.
She stared at him with narrowed eyes for a moment and then turned and resumed the climb with a new energy, pressing her wait into the steps as though each one had done her a great personal wrong. She pulled ahead of him.
"You know," she said, beginning to run out of breath, "If you would let me come and live with you, I would not have to make this climb every day."
He looked at her in surprise and alarm. "It is out of the question," he said. "To be down there in the darkness all the time... it would kill you. And I could not bear it."
"It did not kill you," she said.
He sighed. "It would have eventually, you have my word."
She sighed sadly.
Eventually they reached the top floor, if it could even be described as that - a short, narrow passage with a sloped ceiling and only one door at the end.
Even if there had been others, he would have guessed at once which one was hers, by the sign tacked to the door that read 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here'.
"We have arrived," Christine said.
Suddenly she let out a groan, and as Erik stepped forward, he saw the reason; an immense package was blocking the way to her door.
"Babette! I am going to kill that girl!" Christine grumbled. Then, peering at the label, "Oh... no... it is not for Babette. It says... For Mademoiselle X. And there is no return label. This is peculiar." She stood up in confusion.
"I shall help you get it inside," he said.
"I don't know if we should do that," she said. "It might be a bomb. As a matter of fact, in this part of the city, it is not out of the question." She drew toward it, intrigued by the possibility.
He smiled. His wonderful, mad Christine, so restrained and demure on the outside, but inside as drawn to darkness and chaos as he was. There was a part of him that hoped that one day that wildness would break forth in full.
"I am sorry to disappoint you," he said, "But I have it on good authority that it is not a bomb."
"How can you know that-?" Christine's posture changed. She looked up at him, smiling. "No?"
"Yes; in fact, I am quite certain."
Her smile widened. "Let me see," she said briskly, beginning to analyze how to get it inside. "If you could push from the other end, then-"
She stopped as he stepped in front of her and hoisted it smoothly up onto his shoulder with a single fluid motion. Her eyes lit up in surprise.
Erik, you besotted fool, he thought to himself. He had always thought it undignified when young men blatantly showed off for their sweethearts, and yet here he was doing precisely the same thing. Christine would no doubt see through what he was doing and think him absurd.
"Well. Heavens," she said, eyeing him admiringly. "Are you sure you are not Jean Valijean?"
Instantly, he changed his mind and decided his little bit of showmanship had been worth it. "I am a better thief than he was," he said modestly, and he hauled it into her appartement, nimbly swinging it down to rest on a table by the door.
"Thank you, mon cœur." After lighting a lamp, Christine shut the door.
He looked around them curiously, taking in his first glimpse of her home.
As she had said, it boasted a particularly fine window, the curtains wide to showcase the view beyond, and indeed he could see how splendid it must be during the day, though at this time of night all he could see was the distant glow of gaslamps from busier parts of the city.
Apart from that, it was a typical Parisian garret, dull and pleasantly cramped, though a few artfully placed, vast paper fans on the wall took away from the shabbiness. Two narrow iron bedsteads were wedged into the corners at the far end of the room, beneath another, tiny window. He guessed which was Christine's by the vast collection of books balanced unevenly on a shelf above it, next to a small violin of miserable quality.
A tiny stove near the door seemed the only source of warmth in the room; it stood beside a rickety table piled haphazardly with various foodstuffs and a collection of tin plates and mugs. He winced when he saw that. He would have to do something about that - he couldn't bear the thought of his wife having to drink her coffee from a tin mug.
By the door squatted the only remaining piece of furniture in the room, an immense armchair, almost a loveseat, that might once have been yellow, and looked as though it had seen at least six previous owners.
It was not, altogether, what he would have guessed her home was like. Though perhaps that was to be expected, as he would have imagined her descending every day from some heavenly palace, if he had to describe the kind of place where he thought she might have come from. It would have been difficult for him to situate her in any mortal environment.
And yet, now that he looked at it, and her in it, it fit her perfectly. It was comfortable and bohemian, a warm, quiet refuge from the pandemonium of the city. A cozy nest, where dwelt the most delightful creature the world had ever seen.
It was also in disaster. Much like her practice-room, books, papers, clothes, and music were scattered everywhere. The opposite of his lair, where every sheet of music had a home.
"Here," Christine said, perching on the arm of the chair and patting the seat beside her. "It is more comfortable than it looks."
He joined her gladly, easing himself down onto the cushions.
To his astonishment, it did not collapse beneath their weight.
"Now tell me - what have you done now?" Christine said, sliding into his lap - as though it were the most natural thing in the world! as though he were a man like any other! - and gesturing to the trunk with a smile.
"I don't know what you are talking about." He put his arm about her waist. "I have never seen this before in my life."
She laughed, draping an arm about his shoulders and putting her face up close to his. "What is it?" Her breath was warm on his lips.
He kissed her. "I don't know."
"Mm. Is it... a dog?"
"I should hope not, given the fashion in which I handled it just now."
She chuckled.
"Besides," he said, "Dogs are such dirty creatures." He shuddered delicately.
"It is unfortunate that you feel way, mon cœur, for we are going to have several."
"We certainly are not! They carry disease. It is out of the question; I will not hear of it-"
"-Where have I left the scissors?" Christine said brightly, leaping up. And she began muttering to herself and turning over papers.
"-You are avoiding a most important discussion."
"There is no discussion to be had, mon cœur," she said in a sweet voice. "We shall have dogs."
"I do not like to disagree with you in any matter, but we shall have cats - and only one at a time. In any case, you need not open the thing now," he said, suddenly bashful. "I did not expect it would arrive today-"
"-Oh, but I must," she said. "We cannot sit here while I am wondering what it is. Aha!" She snatched the scissors out from under a sack of onions - what they could possibly have been doing there, he didn't know.
"Have a care," he said, as Christine began fiendishly hacking at the box with the scissor blades.
He came to hover nervously beside her. In a few moments, she had reduced the box to shreds and the contents were laid bare.
Chapter 28 to be continued. Thank you so much for reading!