Li Biyu was not a woman to be played with. She had narrowly escaped foot binding as a baby and entered the best schools in China by pretending to be a boy. Then she proceeded to climb the social ladder until no one dared question her skill in academics or the combat arts. By the time it was revealed she was a girl, she was already too essential to her department to be fired for her audacity. Both her unbound feet and her sharp wit spoke one truth: she was far too busy to involve herself with any man.
Half to rid themselves of her and half because they knew she was qualified, the higher-up bureaucrats bought her a ticket to France to be trained for diplomacy. So, she found herself employed at the Ottoman embassy as a clerk- a spot below her capabilities, she thought. Still, it gave her the opportunity to become fluent in the French language. Western politics were somewhat more open-minded regarding who could work where, but as a safety measure, Biyu sat herself next to the only other non-Frenchman at the office: Nadir Khan.
Months into their work together, she allowed herself to become physically involved with him, just for an evening. It had been a satisfying night, as she let herself be the feminine creature she could never reveal during work hours. There were no promises involved on her part or his.
The next morning, as she sat herself down, Khan strode in a little quicker than normal. She raised an eyebrow at him, but he just wished her a good morning and began his paperwork. By lunchtime, however, she knew his nerves were shaken, because he avoided looking at her and seemed to be breathing manually.
"You seem very nervous today M. Khan," she commented without looking up. The documents in the Turkish language required most of her attention. He said something, but she didn't quite hear it, being occupied with her mental translations between Mandarin, Turkish, and French. At last, she glanced up. Khan stood in front of her, hands folded behind his back to keep from fiddling with them. "Pardon?"
"I, er, asked if you would share a meal with me tonight," he repeated. She pursed her red-tinted lips. I should turn him down on principal. I did tell him that he need not get attached. However, clerical work bored her and she hadn't had any social diversions in a while. She hadn't had any friends in a while, as a matter of fact. At the age of thirty-seven, polite society dictated that she should have been married long before now. It certainly didn't hurt that M. Khan was rather handsome as well as polite. Oh yes, she was well acquainted with his physique. "In my months here I'm afraid I haven't gotten to know you much, but…"
She translated one more sentence of the document in her head and didn't hear the rest of his sentence. What did he say? Oh, it can't have been more important than Sino-Turkish relations. "What time?" she asked.
"Excuse me?" For a moment the poor man looked panicked. To his credit, he recovered well. "Ah, well, I was thinking eight o'clock at L'Escargot Montorgueil. Unless you don't like snails?" This at last caused her to smile.
"I am Chinese, M. Khan. Do not people say we eat anything that moves?"
His eyebrows rose slightly. "So…is that a confirmation?" Her smile just widened as she returned her gaze to the papers before her.
…
Erik glared at the kitten that now sat very innocently on the kitchen counter. "You eat my food, you sleep on my settee and on Christine's bed, and what do I get? A puddle of feces!" Ahmar shifted her tiny paws and yawned, showing off her white teeth and barbed tongue. After the accident he set up a box filled with sand in the washroom where the cat might bury its leavings. The infuriating creature was not at all troubled by his scolding.
"Erik, she's just a baby. I've heard that if you just put her in the box, she'll go by herself," Christine called from the table. The electric lamp was now suspended above her with a pulley he had set up during the night.
"Yes, well, I paid for a premium mouser, not a layabout," he muttered. Ahmar licked her chops and lay down. She folded her paws beneath her with the smug contentment cats have when they succeed in annoying their owners. If I put her in a box with a mouse, maybe that will trigger her hunting instincts- if she has any.
"You should eat before your lunch gets too cold," Christine warned. In the past few days her fingers had healed enough to be freed from their splints, so now she ate without his assistance. She still required him to support her from place to place, her legs being painful and still slightly inflamed, but she was making good progress.
Every bit of her healing made Erik more apprehensive. In the months ahead, would she decide she was well enough to leave? Since the night before he had run her words through his mind countless times, memorizing her assurance that she wanted to stay with him. And this morning, another of his insecurities troubled him: eating required him to move his mask up just a bit, exposing his upper lip. Christine insisted that eating was a social activity, and that it alarmed her that he apparently never ate (which he did, but never where she could see).
She had been in his house for just under two weeks now, and already she'd gotten under his skin. Nadir's useless comment about his weight gain did not comfort him either.
He returned to the dining area and sat as she picked the spoon up and began to scoop roasted potatoes into her mouth. After a few bites, she stopped. "Erik, you're not eating."
"No," he confirmed. "I am waiting for you to finish so that by the time I lift my utensil, you will have carried your dish to the sink." He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, very aware that the length of his legs placed one of his feet just between hers.
She leaned forward with the pout she sometimes used on him in their days as student and teacher. "Please, Erik? For my peace of mind?"
"A view of my mouth as I chew will not give you peace of mind," he argued.
"I already know what you look like, and I'm quite used to it," she snapped back, pout replaced by a determined look. That stripped his conscious protests away. She was accustomed to his face? Certainly she would remember his features, but to say she was 'used to it' was to imply that it didn't bother her.
…Highly unlikely. But his competitive side won out over fear, and slowly, he moved the mask up half an inch and ate, staring (very well, glaring) at Christine the whole while. She stared back with a nonverbal I told you so, and finished her meal as if nothing was wrong.
When he took the dishes back to the sink, he almost forgot to move the mask back into place. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like for them both to go about their daily business with no covering at all- him without his mask and her without her lengths of cotton. For a long time that had been a beautiful fantasy, but now she made him hope it was possible.
A tiny meow sounded at his elbow. He looked aside and realized that he had left Ahmar on the counter for the entire meal, and she was still too small to jump down without hurting herself. "Ah, I apologize." He picked her up in one hand and set her back on the floor, where she sat gazing up at him.
She meowed again. "What is it you want now?" Another meow. "I'm not giving you more food. You've already had your breakfast." From the table, he heard Christine giggle. Still huffy about their argument over eating, he threw his voice so it sounded as if Ahmar were speaking.
"Yes, but I want you to pick me up again," a very catty character said. Christine's laughter stopped short. He smiled to himself. She couldn't see him, but in the doorway, their kitten was in full view, tail twitching.
"Whatever for?" he asked back.
"Nothing," 'Ahmar' said. The woman at the table laughed musically.
"Tell me, Ahmar, what do you think of Christine?" The kitten tipped its head slightly.
"She gives me more food than you do."
The subject of the short 'conversation' guffawed. "Erik, stop, I know it's you!" He stepped around the corner, causing the shadowy feline to scamper away.
"But was it not entertaining?" Her eyes lit up with humor.
"It was, it was- I just don't think I could stand a talking cat for very long. She has such an attitude without being able to speak already!"
"I do not intend to let her laze about," Erik reminded her, "I intend to make a champion mouser out of her."
"Well you won't be able to force Ahmar- or scold her effectively, for that matter," she muttered through her bandages. There were other things on her mind that could not be forced either. It took an effort on Christine's part, but by dinnertime Erik agreed to eat with her at any meals he could. Maybe it would take months for him to become confident enough to remove the mask completely, but she found she did not mind the thought at all. She had time.
…
Dinnertime was different. In the few hours between lunch and the next meal, Christine practiced walking, let herself into and out of the privy by herself, and began reading through Erik's transcribed version of Verdi's Otello. He'd heard the opera performed numerous times at the Palais Garnier and must have transcribed it in a fit of boredom. The paper was old and somewhat yellowed, so he must have written it down years prior.
How many years ago? And how did he come to live under the opera? The more she thought about it, the more questions she had. But she could not voice those questions, even when Erik stopped by her spot on the settee to ask if she needed anything. The price of that information was for him to know her own story, and she wasn't at all eager to tell. But if I never say anything, I will never be able to tell.
As wonderful as it was to have Erik back as her friend, they were not as close as the student and her angel had been a lifetime ago. It was natural for a rift to form between them, but she knew she could not leave their residual hurts to fester. Leaning on themselves and not each other would only bring hurt feelings and tension. The damage done months ago under the opera was still unhealed, but she knew the longer she waited, the harder it would be to speak.
So she gathered her courage and made herself ready. Erik had informed her that bath time was not an appropriate time to talk about something so heavy, so she waited until after dinner. He sat in a chair by the hearth, turned to face her so he could carry her to the bed if she fell asleep. Christine wet her lips (and winced at the resulting sting), then posed the question: "Erik, will you listen to me for a while?"
He looked up from his book. "Of course." His fingers fiddled with the next page, as if anxious to return to his reading. What could be so interesting about an analysis of old French literature, she would never know. "Is it time to tell our respective stories?" His voice trembled a bit. She revised her statement.
"Only if you wish. If I tell you what- what's happened, and you don't want to say what's happened to you, it's all right. I only feel that if I say nothing, I lie to you by omission," she explained quietly. "Never let it be said that I am not an honest woman." And yet I am to reveal that I am not an honest woman, her conscience bit back at her. "Please, I beg of you, do not think differently of me after you hear everything." She swallowed hard. Without realizing it, her hands had balled into fists.
"Christine... I ask of you the same, even if it is impossible." His eyes glittered in the dimness. "And I promise, whatever you say to me now, I will not think of you as anything but who and what you are." He added most gently: "You can tell your guardian angel anything."
And with that, she squeezed her eyes shut began to whisper out her tale.
...
The first month at the de Chagny mansion was a pleasant one. Christine spent long hours outside in the garden, or just sitting and reading. Sometimes she sang, but never the great arias of the stage. Raoul had warned her away from such songs, just for a while, he said. His grandmother insisted that marriage to a performer was beneath the family, almost scandalous. She went along with his requests; after all, she owed it to him after he had agreed to keep their engagement a secret for half a year.
Christine continued to live in the big house for a month, relatively content, aside from the times when music still called in her dreams. Moving her things from her old apartment never entered her mind; she had everything she could wear and use for years to come. Raoul still planned to leave on his expedition, and was packing for the North Pole. Fleeces, boots, and long underwear filled every available space in his room. She never went in; he was going to marry her and leave, and she would wait faithfully, untouched by any other, until he returned. It was almost an inverted repeat of their childhood together.
At least he was until his relatives arrived for the wedding shower. They greeted her cordially enough, but each cousin, aunt, or uncle radiated disapproval as her fiancé remained oblivious and smiling. At last, Grandmother de Chagny arrived. Christine could only stand still, eyes mortified like the good Catholic girl she was supposed to be, with the old woman's eyes roving over her, the neckline of her dress, her sleeves, even the curve of her form. At last, the crone croaked out a question that both embarrassed and angered her.
"Are you with child?" Her wrinkled mouth pursed as she glared at her grandson, who stood stiff as a wall, eyes averted and mouth similarly tight. "Because only in that situation will I allow you to wed, to avoid the shame of some bastard infant. All other current circumstances bring shame to this house no matter what he may say about being in love." She again narrowed her gaze at Christine's hot blush. "More in lust than in love, I'd say," the countess sniffed, and waddled off to the sitting room.
Flustered and angry, her breath quickened and her heart raced. Who was this witch who questioned her virtue? And who was she to assert that a union with Raoul was somehow dishonorable? Hot tears dripped down her cheeks, the insides of which she bit with frustration.
"Darling? Christine, please- she was overreacting, I'm sure if we just give her some time to get used to the idea-"
"Time?" she burst out in a tone seething with rage. "Time? All of your relatives received the news a whole month ago, both by letter and telegram! And you-" Here she nearly choked on her words. "You just stood there and let her insult me without a word. I swear, Raoul, if she weren't old and if you weren't obligated to speak for your fiancée, I would have knocked her to the ground myself!"
"My love, please don't raise your voice," he begged, attempting in vain to placate her. "And please don't knock her down, it's not befitting of a woman of your station."
And unpleasant shock rippled through her. "…Station?" The shock settled into a cold, hard thing in her guts. "You… I agreed to marry you, and now all you think of is what I'm supposed to do in my station?"
"No- I mean, yes, it's important, but when you said yes, I thought you knew!" He was growing agitated now, running his fingers through his blond hair. "I thought you wanted this sort of life, to be a wealthy woman away from the squalor of theatre. I thought you loved me." Here he gazed back at her with a hurt expression about his blue eyes, eyes that matched hers and yet did not see as she did.
Christine swallowed and gritted her teeth. "I did, Raoul. And I thought being together would make us both happy." She turned around lest he see her sob. "It seems you consider others' feelings more highly than those of your betrothed." She made her way to the house's grand, gilded staircase and stomped up it. "I'll be in my room. If you have an ounce of courage in you, Raoul, you'll apologize and we will stand up to your family together."
Moments later, the dejected vicomte heard the bedroom door slam shut.
Another, more percussive sound reached his ears from the open front doors. He looked; there was Philippe de Chagny, clapping slowly with a sarcastic smile across his chiseled face. "Bravo, little brother. You've really mucked it all up this time, haven't you?"
"I don't have time for your wit, Philippe. I have a fiancée to make up with, if at all possible." He straightened his jacket and made for the stairs.
"Stop where you are," Philippe said in the voice that commanded the household. Raoul froze.
"What do you want now?" he gritted out.
His older brother smiled. It was not a nice smile. "I have a solution in mind that will please our dear grandmother, you, and your little singer- if you're man enough." Raoul turned around.
"I'm listening."