Strange… the feeling in this room. We have escaped, we're alive. Now, having left behind the world of the would-be Count of Monte Cristo it is raining. Droplets are tapping on the window and no one speaks. Baptistine looks shocked, Haydee is pale, and I imagine my face is ill with despair.
It isn't until much later that I'm told I looked calm, as if I did not yet understand that my father, and the all-important man, had died and left the world. There is so much loss; it's so heavy that my face and body are unable to move.
My mind drifts to Franz, to my mother (she is not well in the corner), and always to memory of the eyes of the man who changed me. Suffering seems permanent in my mind, and for the first time, since all of this started, I begin to understand the kind of obsession that can lead to the madness of hate…I finally understand him. My soul will forever ache for that last smile, those last kind words, and I know I'll never forget.
Confusion, my bedfellow since that first fateful day on Luna, will walk alone with me for the rest of my life. It's all he left to me.
…No, not all. There is also the word, the name Edmond, and in it, perhaps, a little hope.
Haydee, naturally, is the first to crack. Her magnificence peels away as she collapses into Ali's arms. Her kimono swells out like a balloon as she falls, grasping her legs snuggly once more as she finds the floor.
Everything is slow.
Baptistine limps to her side. He is the next to cry. But, despite the relentless desire to join them, I do not.
The bags beneath my eyes feel heavy and raw. Just as the skies of Paris pour out over the rooftops and streets at Edmond's side I have already poured out everything within me. Part of me is gone. My innocence, those feelings of elation and awe, the eagerness to see tomorrow, they are buried under the rubble with the body of the man I loved.
I don't think I could bear to loose Eugenie, after all of this. But god these feelings... I almost resent that she is somewhere in this world, waiting anxiously by a phone, praying that the count is dead.
0-0-0
Edmond clutched his wound and rested against the side of a stone building. Watery evidence of his torn flesh drenched the white of his shirt, but his body held together, mended by a magnificent power that made the demon within him coo.
He panted as the drain above drenched his clothing. The water fell like a bed-sheet draping down in the wind, full of holes and reflected lights. It separated the dry world from the wet, straight down and flat from the building's overhang.
"We have done it!" Gankutsuou roared. "We live my friend! And your despised enemies are ruined or dead! That foolish immortal has unleashed us back upon the world and we are free to move about it!"
"I must hide." Edmond thought to him. "there are many who would recognize me."
"I very much doubt that!" The spirit clicked. "Other than your fangs and ears your body shows no traces of my presence! Death's gift has made you more powerful than I could have hoped. Here, rest within and let me drag our body to your servants. I wish to see if I will still manifest upon your brow."
"No." he took several moments to gain his footing before standing to his full and impressive height. "They deserve some peace, now that things have ended."
The demon snorted. "How do you plan to make amends if you avoid them? However will you heal that 'poor' little heart or yours all alone?"
He tilted his face up towards the sky, allowing the rain to slip down his cheeks. It wetted his ashen hair, straightening it.
"It is better that I remain dead to them."
"…And the wealth?!"
"Thiers. "
Gankutsuou shuddered, had that damn boy done more damage than he'd expected? "And what of the innocent? You will leave him to suffer your memory for the rest of his life?"
"…Albert…more than any needs me to remain dead. It is kinder this way."
In the night, in the cold and wet of the storm, on the cobblestone streets, Edmond began to shake in the cold. The gutters covered the asphalt with little rivers and lakes, and the red from his stained shirt ran with them, diluting and mixing into clear.
Gankutsuou's mouth hung open in surprise. Money was no problem, it was easy to get, but this change did not at all suit his goals. Kindness? When had such a thing crept in between them, had that one fateful fight, that kiss, that awakening really caused this? And what leverage would he hold over the mind of a man who would give up his desires for another?
"My friend," he began, "we have a deal. You may be the master, but the immortality is mine to give, and I am only bound to you until death. Let us be clear. You will see, in time, that kindness will gain you nothing. I see it in your thoughts. Your memories of betrayal and maddening captivity are as potent now as ever. You once said to me, you will remember, that it is my task to prevent the past from repeating. I intend to uphold that promise, regardless of new oaths."
Edmond extended a reassuring smile. It was no shock that that Gankutsuo was disturbed. With his goals completed, his vengeance furtive and blossoming, and nothing more to achieve; he had no reason to go on. There was nothing after vengeance; which is why he had promised his body to the monster in the first place.
It must have been a terrifying prospect for one such as Gankutsuou - a man with nothing to gain.
He gasped, and doubled over, startling the demon. A pain in his belly that he had not felt for ages rumbled within him, pushing on the walls of his stomach with a growling insistence. A few moments passed, and he grew more accustom to the ache.
"When," he wondered allowed, "was the last time I felt hunger?"
"In the Château D'if." Gankutsou snickered, eager for the opportunity to remind him.
"General Morcerf would have been happier if it had taken you to your life then, before that little boy's kiss, I think, perhaps, if Albert had let me walk away he might have resisted suicide…he could have experienced the same ruin you did…for years and years. In a way, the boy ruined your plans."
The attempt to insight new rage within him failed. "Well, I'll need a change of cloths before I can worry about food. If anyone sees me they'll call an ambulance…or the authorities."
Fog rolled up from the streets as Edmond Dantes took his first tentative steps into the cold.
0-0-0
It's been three days now. Three days since my father and Edmond died. I'm starting to wonder.
They died for such stupid reasons I think as I brood out the window of our hotel room. The leaves are turning dismal colors in the courtyard, and the grass is not as green. Everything has changed.
I think to myself that even if things had ended differently, with the Count living on with someone else at his side…I could never take that someone away from him. This hurts too much to do it to another.
Yet, both the men who claimed to value my mother beyond all else found no issue in stealing away the ones she loved.
I catch the urge to cry and strangle it.
Franz told me once, when I struggled with my feelings for my fiancé, that I would know real love when it hit. Real love is fraught with selflessness, and looking back now, my father's actions were anything but that. Of course…I can't speak much differently of the count, but I must believe he loved me. It must have been real, if only for one enormous and terrible moment, when tears rolled down his cheeks, and a gun pointed at my head.
God the guilt...I hate myself for clinging to that thought; when Franz had shown me, in the loudest way he could, who, in the whole world had loved me most. And now Eugenie is doing her best to scream it at me, begging me to let it go, just as Franz did.
But I cannot stand the thought of letting him go.
Poor Eugenie. She's worried. She wants my mother and I to come to New York while she goes to school, but I don't know.
I told her I'd think about it, and she must have heard something in my voice because she calls back within the hour, and doesn't even bother with pleasantries.
"Albert, are you okay?" her voice is soft on the other line, full of concern and warmth. I can hear her tension and imagine that she must be standing by her piano, one hand on its pearly keys, for comfort and support.
"Yeah." I laugh, but have admit, it sounds fake even to me. "Shouldn't you be registering for classes? Have you met any of your piano instructors yet?"
"It's okay Albert, you don't have to…to pretend." She sounds awkward and I wonder why we have such a hard time admitting our feelings to each other. Love shouldn't be like this, but then, maybe this is real? It was easy with Edmond, until the lies came out. Does that mean easy love is a lie?
So if real love is hard, but easy love is a lie then what's the point? What's the point if it hurts, or you're only fooling yourself?
"Tell me," she pleads, "what's going on inside of you?"
If his love was a lie, then why did my kiss force Gankutsuou back? How can I ask Eugenie something like that? I don't, and I never will.
I can't ask my mother, Baptistin, or Haydee. They devoted their hearts to him, but none of them could save him. It was me, wasn't it? I was the one who brought Edmond back, it killed him, but I brought him back….why does it matter now?
"I'm just a little lost." I tell her.
Who was Edmond Dantes really? Was his acting, his maneuvering me into position, really all fake? Were there at least half-truths in the things he did, and said?
His feelings of hatred were real enough, but I don't sense that he ever hated me personally. He called me a tool, a pawn, but I think he would have left me alone if I hadn't challenged him to that duel…a duel that destroyed the one person who WAS telling me the truth.
There is a painful wait, and I don't tell her any of this.
She's hesitating, wanting me to go on, not sure what to say. I want her to press me, and it bothers me that she can't read my mind the way the count always did…but then maybe that was just an illusion. He had such power over me; did he really create my thoughts?
How can I admit that I don't even know who, or what he was? And yet it consumes me. I love the count. Or, did I feel so worthless that I needed him, on any level, to tell me I was valuable?
Did I give him all I had again, after he had destroyed Franz, my best friend, as he would have destroyed me, because I was desperate to be loved? Did I simply imagine his fondness and regard at the end? Or did I really see him? Did all the things I so adamantly believed about Edmond prove themselves truths in that kiss?
"I'm sorry Eugenie." I say when I can stand the thoughts no longer. "I need to help mother pack. She needs to get out of Paris. We all do."
Would it be more painful, as it was that night on the landing platform, to know the truth? Will I ever have the courage to let go?
0-0-0
"I don't understand why we couldn't have stayed at the villa." Gankutsuou growled in the back of their head. "It's totally deserted and no one will ever buy it. The place is singularly your taste, after all."
"I can not guarantee that there will be no prospective buyers." Was Edmond's bored reply.
"Or," the demon wondered with an ironic tone, probing, and testing the mind beneath him, "is the truth that you can not stand the thought of seeing your guilt in those blue eyes; should they come visit the lost count's home?"
Edmond turned his face away. In the window of the taxi his faint reflection, trapped in glass, peered back with a muddled expression.
Dressed in a simple black button down shirt and trousers, having sold a few items left at the villa, he watched the streets pass by. There were memories here, most of them involving Albert; trusting and honest in youthful adoration.
Not as he had been when the bombs fell, or as he'd sobbed goodbye onto his chest.
"What an adventure these days have been." Gankutsuou's voice seethed with sarcasm, "you turned down every opportunity I gave you to mass wealth, even refused to slit the throat of that drunken pig who dared who dared lay his hands on you. You've never been the type to just walk away my friend."
He bit his tongue, and would not play this game.
The taxi stopped alongside the Veillefort mansion, now vandalized beyond recognition. Red graffiti and vial words covered the outside walls. Shattered glass coated the overgrown grass below broken windows, violated by rocks and bricks.
He hoped the green house had survived.
As he made his way across the neglected yard a cat hissed and dodged away, having claimed an abandoned room within the white walls for it's den.
Here was the end of Veillefort's accomplishments; his house demolished, the upholstery torn, and gangly spider-webs growing in the corners.
"Do you feel like a new man?" Gankutsuou continued his snaky speech. "Has helping humanity opened up your world? Does the idea of spreading your kindness really sooth you more than the evidence of your revenge?!"
"Not at all," Edmond murmured, reveling in the distressed look of the property, and how it now echoed the minds of its former masters.
"Then return to your servants and let us rebirth the count so that he may continue his campaigns! Death wishes for us to do good, let us go and do it! We could change this world!"
He shook his head and sighed. "No."
"Albert would be happy to see you, my friend, and furious to find that you'd avoided him this long."
"Albert was seduced. I will not disrupt his life again."
The greenhouse windows, like those of the white monstrous building behind, were in complete disarray. The sensitive plants within wilted and bent in the uncontrolled temperature.
He did not stop, however, to examine the fading foliage and climbing vines, instead he went straight to the plant he had noted on his last and only visit here.
Stooping over, black and wavy hair falling forward before being pushed hurriedly aside, he gathered the roots, as well as a few precious seed pods; beige and round.
Madam Villerfort had no idea how helpful she had been to the count, a perfect minion; easy to control.
"Are there enough?" The demon asked.
"Plenty. The plant is in poor condition, but the stock is good. I can make enough pills to last until we find somewhere to grow the seeds."
"We?"
"I." he rolled his eyes.
Gankutsuou did not hide his elation. This was excellent! A fortuitous sign! Edmond could not help but think of them as sharing action. This was good.
"You don't exactly need pills to hold me back now that you have death's gift. I'm not crystallizing you're body…why bother with them?"
"I am not a fool, Gankutsuou." He pulled a smooth hair behind a pointed ear, with long and dangerous nails. "I have studied the tales of the Transylvanian vampire, one of your former hosts. Even in this arrangement I will need blood. I deduced, long ago, that the reason you allowed me to hold you back with pills was to avoid unproductive obsessions, such as those which go with the vampire's thirst. Drinking blood, while giving me my own power and immortality separate from you, will make me more and more a creature of shadow and under your rule. You are hoping I would depend on food alone, and fall pray to the blood lust, am I right?"
The demon laughed, enjoying how clever and suitable his host was. "Yes, completely. Perhaps I should not have mentioned it during our chat with death…I gave myself away."
"Then I think these roots will produce enough batches, and I think I'll disregard your advice concerning them."
0-0-0
It's hard to describe what makes one performance of the same piano piece, preformed at the same skill level, better than another. Maybe I'm partial because she's an old friend.
Either way, I love listening to her play.
I feel like something inside of me rises and falls with the high and low notes, and for a while I take my eyes off of Eugenie in her white sun dress, and lean back in my chair to listen.
This is the first time she's played publicly in New York, and from the stunned faces around the room, I think she's impressed some of the Universities patrons. I hope so. She deserves it.
After the show I meet her at the bottom of the stage. I brought flowers this time, carnations, white and yellow.
Maybe I don't understand woman, she seems disappointed that I didn't bring fruit this time.
Mother tells me later that Eugenie probably wanted things to feel normal between us. The flowers ended up being one more unexpected, and probably threatening change.
She also tells me how wonderful my friend is, and how lucky any man will be to have her. I'm listening, riding backwards in the carriage, enjoying the decidedly different look of New York City. It's gritty, and powerful - the kind of city you can take at face value, as long as you expect it to be dangerous.
I'm feeling pretty good, its nice to be in a place that makes me feel alive and so full of movement, and then that word slips out.
"Marseilles?" the disbelief is plain on my face. "you still want to go back there? Why?"
She's ringing her hands together, my beautiful mother in her red gown, with sadness in her eyes.
"It was the last place where everything was right, the last place I was happy. Albert…when your father…what he did to poor Edmond…Albert you were the only good that came of that terrible mistake I made."
She's about to cry, so I stand up and move, sitting beside her so I can hold her hand. The fabric of her glove is wrinkled and velvet, but she squeezes me hard through it.
"Albert, I'm so sorry…I know this all happened because of me, and now you feel the same hole that I felt all my life."
It strikes me; she's right. All this confusion, all my sadness…Franz was right. I can be so spoiled. My arms embrace her and she sobs into my shoulder.
We are all asking ourselves the same questions; Haydee, my mother, and I.
"I know it won't be the same." She continues. "But I just need to be home."
