"Sir?"
I'd done a job in the small hours and was sleeping the day away. I have always been able to gauge the degree of my self-loathing by the amount of sleeping I do.
"Sir?"
I rolled over and did a heroic job at sounding less irritated than I felt. "Anci. For the three thousand, nine hundred seventy first time: Erik."
"Erik."
"Yes. Come here, child, Erik's chilly." Anci had endeared herself to me as much as it was possible to do so with her unquestioning obedience. She was most definitely not Christine.
"Sir, Mama says for you to come upstairs. Erik."
"Why?" I frowned. I was not accustomed to responding to directives from that woman.
"There is a gentleman looking for you."
"Goddammit!"
Anci squealed and cringed. I had never struck her, but someone most definitely had.
"Not you, child," I soothed absently. If Anci had a liability, it was her limitless need for reassurance. "You're a good girl." As much as I regretted it, I was forced to put her away from me. "Go fetch your mother for me, hm? Go on, we'll play later."
Erzsebet was duly summoned.
"What did I tell you the first day I came here, woman?" I demanded. "Privacy; tell me if someone comes looking for me. Is everyone here stupid?"
"This is a gentleman," she sniffed. "He doesn't mean you any harm."
"I see; and we all know what an excellent judge of character you are."
Erzsebet ignored the jab and flounced off. I dressed, finishing off the ensemble with my Persian dagger--best I could do under the circumstances—and headed upstairs to meet my guest. Before I cleared the stairway, an extremely natty glove landed at my feet.
"BASTARD!"
"Raoul, how lovely to see you." I stooped cautiously to fetch his glove.
"Choose your weapons, you coward! Fiend! I cannot find words foul enough! I will kill you, or die trying!"
"A duel? Are you serious?"
"Do not toy with me, monster! Choose your weapons!" What a change time had wrought in Raoul. He looked at me with such unveiled hatred; I'd never seen it burn so brightly in him before.
What was it about him and Christine? They seemed to be the only people on earth who could remind me of my tenuous link with the rest of mankind. I wished I could forget the thing that I could never succeed at, but they would not let me. So long as they lived, they would be there, demanding that I try to be human.
"Swords," I replied.
"Tomorrow morning?"
I nodded. "You came all this way to kill me?"
"I would gladly descend to hell to kill you."
Again I nodded. "I am sorry that I took her from you. You are a good man."
Something in what I said infuriated him. He flew at me, knocking me to the floor. I welcomed his strong young hands around my neck. When he realized I was offering no resistance, he threw me back down in disgust.
"You haven't even got the courage to end your miserable life! I didn't come to put down a mangy dog. Sad, pathetic man. GET UP!" he roared. He kicked me and I felt my ribs give way.
Anci shrieked and threw herself across me protectively. "No more, Sir, please!" She struggled to help me to my feet.
"Oh, Jesus!" Raoul exclaimed bitterly. He pressed some money on Erzsebet and told her to see to me, and asked her where he could find 'more suitable' accommodations as Anci bore me away.
"Erik! I will be back tomorrow, do you hear?" he called after me.
"Get up! Get out!"
Anci wailed as Raoul dragged her out of bed. I clutched at the covers too quickly and winced in pain.
"How old are you?" he demanded of her. He was glaring at me and shaking his head.
"Fifteen, Sir," she mumbled.
"Fifteen; for the love of god. Go on, get!"
Anci scurried away.
"I thought she was older. She looks older." I groaned as I tried to sit up.
"If you were a horse I would not waste a bullet on you," Raoul spat.
"Do you intend to let my ribs heal before you run me through?"
"I don't intend to run you through at all. I came here to kill a man; I haven't found one. I sat up half the night thinking of what to do now," Raoul fumed. "The only way I can think of to make you suffer is to let you see the suffering you've left in your wake. You're coming back to France with me."
"The hell I am!" I attempted to struggle upright, but Raoul punched my injured side again.
"The hell you're not. I know you don't mind dying, but I'll wager you don't wish to be tortured. I'm sure you've made a few 'friends' in Budapest. Come with me or I'll find them."
"Go to hell!"
"After you, Phantom."
I considered my options and decided the best was to go along and wait for an opportunity to give him the slip. Meanwhile, I saw an opportunity to help Anci to a better life. "I have to bring the girl with me."
"You're even sicker than I took you for!" he grimaced.
"No. The mother—the child has no life here now, not after—"
"Not after you've ruined her, you mean to say?" he sneered.
"Precisely; thank you for that. She is a good child; she would be a fine domestic. Let me bring her."
"If I catch you playing pat-a-cake, I'll change that beautiful voice of yours," he threatened.
"Understood." I remained in awe of how cruel Raoul had become.
Throwing Anci into the mix disrupted Raoul's plans somewhat. While he re-evaluated, I sent her off to procure some traveling clothes for herself and prayed she wouldn't come back with anything that made her look too much of a tart. When she returned with a relatively quiet blue suit, I embarked upon the task of telling her that we were headed to Paris, that it was a secret from Mama, and that she would have to pass as my daughter on the journey. Then came the part where I tried to explain that Raoul expected impeccable behavior on both our parts; this was simply too much for her. Perhaps my Hungarian was not equal to the task, but the closest Anci could come was that Raoul was sniffing after a little something for himself.
"Tell her she'll have her own room on the train!" he yelled, exasperated. "How hard can it be?"
"You tell her! She's never been alone for a minute in her life!"
Meanwhile, Anci cried silently, because when people hollered, she got hit. I reached out to comfort her. "No, Anci—"
"AH! Hands off!"
"Oh for god's sake, man, she's frightened; she's got no one but me!"
"Make it a paternal job…" he waved his sword ominously.
"Whatever."
Thus our trip began. Anci clung to my hand so tightly it brought tears to my eyes. Raoul hissed at me everytime she flubbed over 'Sir-Erik-Papa'. After the first night, during which none of us got any sleep due to her incessant howling, Raoul permitted her to sleep with me. So she nestled her cushy bottom into my lap, drew my hand over her breasts and drifted happily into dreamland. I suspect Raoul did not sleep any more than I did; he was lying awake listening for telltale rustling and et cetera so he could kill me.
At breakfast I nursed my coffee and watched Anci slathering an obscene amount of butter onto a biscuit. It was stimulating.
"When do you plan to explain her new life to her?" Raoul asked.
"I don't know. She hasn't got a new life yet."
"She has where you're concerned, or the authorities will have something to say about it." He turned to Anci. "Anci, look here, Erik can't be your man anymore. He has a woman in Paris, do you understand? Wife?"
"No I don't!"
"You think not?" he hissed. Anci leapt up and raced from the dining car, smelling an argument. We followed her back to our compartment, bickering the entire way.
"I told her to move on! I told her to start fresh! I expressly told her to forget me," I insisted.
"You really are a madman! Forget you how?" he slammed the door behind us. Anci ran to the bathroom and locked herself in. Raoul glared after her. "You bring that bit of infant fluff along, all worried about giving her a better life—is that supposed to compensate in your twisted mind for what you did to Christine? There is something very, very wrong with you!"
"I know that!" I hollered. "That's why I left!"
"Don't try to convince me that your motivation was noble, Erik. You forget how much history we have. You left because you're a damned coward, and you couldn't stand to see what you'd done to someone you claimed to love!"
"That's not true! I realized I couldn't be like you! She needs someone like you!" I shook my head, clapping my hands over my ears. Raoul shoved something I recognized as a photograph in front of me, but I clamped my eyes shut before I could see the image.
"See what you did!" he roared. "I'm going to make you see!"
I was trembling; I didn't want to cry in front of this boy. Frantic, I struggled with the door, throwing myself against it uselessly.
"Nowhere to run this time, Phantom. You're not much without your trap-door, are you?" Raoul's voice was an ugly whisper. The room was too small and too hot. I couldn't breathe…
"You didn't die," Raoul spat. "See? Even when you faint like a girl, I'm still here when you come to your senses."
"Leave me alone. Anci, be a good girl and fetch Erik a brandy." I tried to sit up, but the room was not stable yet.
"No. Tell Madam Erik to get it!" Anci was most unattractive from crying. She looked at me as if I was the devil himself.
I turned dead eyes on Raoul. "Well well, haven't you been a busy little bee."
"I am not married, Anci; I do not have a Madam Erik. The girl in Paris—who this oaf thinks is still mine—I left her when I came to Budapest. However, I'm bringing you to Paris so that you don't have to be my girl anymore. I will see to it that you have a fine position someplace, and you'll meet a handsome young man and marry and have lots of lovely babies. Doesn't that sound marvelous?"
"No; I want to stay with you," she sniffed.
I fished for a handkerchief. "Here, child. You cannot stay with me. In Paris, you are a bit young to be the companion of an old man like me. Of course, we'll remain friends, but no more…you know."
She thought hard on that. Raoul studied me as I lied. I made a mental note to consider carefully how to avenge myself on him. He and I did not speak much for the remainder of the journey.
Upon arrival in Paris, we went directly from the train into a carriage. I heard Raoul give Reza's address.
"You're taking me to Reza?"
"Christine is there," Raoul responded blandly.
"No; I told her to leave there."
"You left," he spat.
"Wait, can't you give me some time to prepare?" I already knew his answer; he ignored me.
"You know something, Erik? As large a city as Paris is, news travels. When the bishop caught word that Christine had given birth, he counted backward on his fingers and revoked the annulment. I had to explain this to my fiancée less than a month before the wedding." He nodded at me, eyes glowing with hatred once again. "We had to explain this to all our family and friends. I had to explain to some officials who thought perhaps I wanted to commit bigamy. And, of course, I had to give my name to your little bon voyage gift."
I felt an encroaching queasiness.
"Reza said Christine had a horrible time of it," he continued. "She was ill, and tremendous. The child was huge: ten pounds. Do you know how big that is? You know who was with her? No one: strangers."
Darius was puttering in the herb garden when we pulled up outside. One look at me emerging from the carriage and he was off faster than an opera rat's tutu. I took two steps and proceeded to throw my guts up.
Raoul took a death grip on my arm.
"You can puke, piss yourself, faint, whatever you like; don't fret. I'm right here by your side," he grinned.