I really have to apologise for the length of this chapter. There's a lot happening and I wanted to fit it all into one chapter. Hopefully it all works out and you don't get bored towards the end, but I am open to suggestions as usual. Please review, and thank you to my regular reviewers!
In May of 1919 I stood on the deck of the gleaming ship as it pulled out from the New York docks. It sailed smoothly out of the channel and I looked back at the waving crowd despite knowing that my father was not among them. After almost twelve years in America I was going back to France.
Seeing the Statue of Liberty brought back sad memories of how Mother and I had stood on the deck of another ship together, looking forward to our trip with excitement and trepidation. Little did I know that the city we were arriving in would become my home or that Raoul would leave here alone…
I was travelling second class this time, which was perfectly comfortable, and my fellow passengers were friendly but not obtrusive. The ship was not full; in fact many people would have been travelling in the other direction at this time, mostly on a one-way trip. Even in Coney Island, there was already a trickle of newcomers, more "huddled masses" trying to escape war-ravaged Europe. But this trip had been on my heart for some time, probably since the start of the war. It was time to go back to my homeland for a little while and lay a few ghosts to rest.
During the voyage I entertained myself with reading, as usual. Instead of Jules Verne I now had another science fiction writer, H.G Wells, to help pass the time. And when I was feeling philosophical I remembered the last voyage when I was just a boy and not the college graduate I now was. My time at Julliard had involved a lot of hard work but it had all been worth it when I stood on that podium in my cap and gown, looking down on my father in the audience. And although half his face was covered as usual, I knew he was proud of me.
Several things happened in 1918 and not just my graduation. The war finally ended. I was accepted to study for a Masters degree. Papa made me a partner in Phantasma which was a great honour although I had to devote a lot of time to my studies now. And after a lot of thought and deliberation, I finally broke my final tie with the de Chagny family and became Gustave Durand.
"You don't have to take my last name, you know. Even I don't use it very much," Papa reassured me, but I wanted more than anything to have my father's name and identity.
He must have known deep down that I would still want to take this trip. I knew he was reluctant to give me his blessing, but he did in the end. "It's only right that you want to go back, I suppose", he mused, "You never got to say goodbye properly to your old life."
Arriving into Cherbourg was disorientating at first. I was carrying out that last journey in reverse and everything was so different now, including my name. Customs seemed to take a long time but I did not feel like I was in a hurry. I was home...
It was still fairly early when I boarded the train for Paris and it was then that I realised how different things really were. The ravaged countryside shocked me, and I tried not to look out at it. Deserted farmhouses, derelict villages, bomb craters… I felt like I was looking at another country.
Things got worse in Paris when I walked out of St Lazaire station into a city I didn't know any more. There were more beggars than I remembered and several young war veterans hobbling around on crutches or being pushed in wheelchairs. Everyone looked tired and shabby. Even the buildings looked old now, and I could clearly see the aftermath of the heavy shelling and air raids the city had endured during the war. There were boarded up shops, pock marked walls and still a few piles of rubble, even now.
After checking into a small hotel, I tried to retrace our steps – Mother's and mine – but the locations of her favourite stores eluded me. Were they still open, I wondered. I managed to find Montclares, the toyshop that she used to bring me to, but realised that I no longer remembered any of the staff. Even if I had, would they have remembered me?
I eventually found the café that we used to go to, and had a cream éclair for old times' sake, accompanied by a cup of coffee. But the waitresses looked too young to have worked there in former times and what could I have said to them anyway? They just looked tired and sad and probably didn't care that a former opera singer and her child once frequented this place; God knows what they had suffered over the last few years.
I paid and left. Stopping by a fruit and vegetable stall in the market, I bought a few apples and distributed them to some of the homeless people that I met, just as Mother would have done. At this point I plucked up the courage to talk the stallholder but he didn't remember Mother or me. An older woman on a neighbouring stall remembered us vaguely and sympathised with me over my mother's death. But everyone had different priorities now and what was one more death in this city? Exhausted and confused, I was glad to return to my hotel that night after walking around the city that I used to love.
After making enquiries with the elderly concierge the next morning, I was glad to learn that there was now a bus service to Grouville, my old village. The bad news was that it did not leave for another hour and a half so I spent that time in the foyer of the hotel, reading a newspaper and trying to catch up on the news, especially the progress of the Paris Peace conference.
The road out to Grouville was reassuringly familiar and the village itself had not changed much, with the bakery, the grocers' where our cook used to shop, the inn… I just stood there for a while, trying to take everything in. There was the village square, and the school, and I could see St Martins' off in the distance... It was a Saturday and there were plenty of people about, shopping or chatting, but the mood was sombre and there was a noticeable lack of young people.
Turning around suddenly to head towards the chateau, I bumped into an old man who was just coming out of the grocers and I apologised hastily.
"No damage done, lad, are you looking for anywhere in -"
He stopped in mid sentence and stared at me.
"No, it can't be.. It's not, is it?"
"Sorry, do we know each other?"
"I can't believe it, it's Master Gustave! After all these years!"
Then I recognised him. It was Antoine, our gardener and Louis' father.
"Antoine! It's so good to see you. I can't believe it either! And it's just "Gustave" now, by the way."
We shook hands warmly and it turned out we were both going to the same place so we walked along together. He kept saying how he couldn't believe I was "home" at last and what a coincidence it was that we'd met at that very moment.
"Your father- I mean, the vicomte, usually lives in Paris now. He bought an apartment in Auteuil a few years ago and he's been living there ever since the end of the war. I'm sure you'd like to visit him, but I know my wife would be glad to see you and it would mean your trip out here wasn't wasted. Will you join us for some lunch?"
I agreed and we discussed the weather and other trivial subjects until we arrived at the front gates.
Antoine pushed it open and I stepped inside for the first time in over a decade. That last carriage ride down the drive was going around in my mind, the day we left for America thinking all our problems would be solved. And now here I was back again.
There is was, in front of me at last - the beautiful, imposing chateau of the de Chagny family and my home for ten years. I had to rub my eyes. How many times had I dreamt of entering those gates again? How often had I dreamt, both at night and in my waking hours, after an argument with Papa, or a long silent day, of running across that lawn and bursting in through that front door, hoping, wishing that all would be just as I'd left it… And the dream where entry was barred to me, where I was forced to watch Mother through the window yet never join her...
I could feel tears sting my eyes and berated myself silently, as Antoine led me through the front door of his little cottage. As I stepped over the threshold I realised that I had never entered this house before. Louis and I used to meet somewhere in the grounds, or he might call to the back door of the chateau, never the front door. On a wintry day, the cook would bring him inside to wait for me by the warm hob. That was all he ever saw of the inside of my home and I had never really thought of these things until now.
"Look who I met in the village, my dear!" Antoine announced proudly.
His wife Jeanne was making soup when we entered but soon left the stove when she realised who I was and gave me a warm welcome, agreeing that I should stay for lunch. Amid the happiness of this reunion there seemed to be something wrong and I looked around me, hardly daring to ask. And yet I had to. I waited until the euphoria had died down and we were sitting around the table in front of steaming bowls of soup before trying to voice the question that was on the tip of my tongue.
"Louis..." I whispered. It was neither a question nor a statement, just a word.
Immediately I regretted saying it, but could not take it back.
My hosts looked at each other, then Jeanne bowed her head and Antoine slowly lowered his spoon back into his bowl, and I realised how white his hair was and how worn out he looked. Both of them did.
"Louis was killed at Verdun three years ago," Antoine told me softly, his voice wavering.
I was glad I was sitting down.
They went on to tell me of how the fort he had been stationed in underwent heavy shellfire, how he had died along with most of his platoon, the day the telegram came… It was all details, part of a war I had not experienced and could not imagine.
I drank as much of my soup as I could but there was a lump in my throat, and I could not think straight. My mind was not in this house any more.
"Gustave, want to play hide and seek? I'll hide – I know a great hiding place, you'll never find me!"
"Race you to the oak tree – last one there's a rotten egg!"
"I have to go in for my dinner now, Gustave, can we finish this game tomorrow?"
I snapped myself out of my reverie to try and comfort those who were grieving more that I was, the two people who had known Louis for every day of his life.
When the lunch things were cleared away, Jeanne showed me the little bible that her son had brought with him to the Front. She also retrieved the toy soldier I had bought him in Phantasma, thinking I was on vacation and could give it to him myself. She wound it up and put in on the table – to my delight it still worked!
"He loved that, you know. He used to demonstrate it to everyone, didn't he dear?"
"Yes, he was happy to receive it although he missed you a lot," Antoine replied.
"He used to talk about you all the time when you were younger, didn't he dear?" his wife continued, "He'd come in for his dinner in the evenings and he'd be chatting away about everything the two of you got up to, it was all "Gustave this" and "Gustave that". He was so proud to have you as a friend. He did miss you, like my husband said, but he tried to get on with the boys in the village. He always found it hard to make friends, poor thing. Not like the girls."
I vaguely remembered Louis' two older sisters. They were always teasing their brother so we usually kept out of their way. Jeanne told me that they were married now and both of them were happy and living relatively near to their parents. Their husbands were farmers and exempt from military service, which had been a great relief to everyone.
But there was another piece of bad news for Antoine and his wife to share, and I had guessed it already when I heard no familiar bark and no friendly tongue licking my hand.
"Alfie died in the winter of 1914. He was old and died peacefully, in his sleep. I think his heart just gave up. He didn't suffer." Jeanne told me gently.
I closed my eyes. My other dear friend… And both of them just as fondly remembered, even now.
"Thank you for looking after him. Especially after I... stayed on unexpectedly," I said to them after a long pause.
"It was no trouble at all, he was a good dog and we all adored him, especially Louis."
I sat there thinking. I thought of Alfie of course but I also thought of how Louis had returned to this tiny, sparsely furnished cottage each night and wondered if he'd sat at the table and jabbered away about my latest toy, or the café I'd visited in Paris, or the delicious food at the birthday party I'd attended the day before, all the things I used to cheerfully tell him about during our time together.
Later, Antoine brought me across the sweeping lawn that contained so many memories and patiently waited as I stood under the oak tree where Mother and I used to have picnics in the summer. Finally we were standing in front of the house.
"I have a key if you'd like to look inside," he told me.
I wasn't sure how to reply and instead excused myself while I walked around the outside of my old home, peeping into windows at furniture covered in dust sheets and looking for – what? Looking back I'm not sure – did I expect Mother to suddenly walk around the corner? Here was the window I had beaten on in my dream; there was the armchair that Mother sat in. Only..only she wasn't there and as I peered through at the dusty, abandoned room I knew she never would be again.
Sadness gripped my heart as I realised the truth. Everything that once made this place a home was gone now. It was a building, nothing else, a building that did not belong to me. And what of my old bedroom, the beloved room that I once wanted to return to so badly in those early days of grief? Even if all my toys and books were still there, they were a child's possessions, not a man's. Louis, Alfie, Mother most of all... they were no more. I was twenty two years of age and if I entered that house I would be looking at it with a man's eyes; I was an innocent child no longer. I had eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and knew the secrets that had been kept from me, all the years I had lived here.
As I returned to the front of the house, something occurred to me as I looked through one particular window.
"Antoine, where's the piano? Do you know if it was moved to another room?" I asked nervously.
"As far as I know, it was sold, Gustave. To the du Laurents if my memory serves me correctly."
Childish anger rose within me as I thought of that horrible Madame du Laurent and her equally horrible son, a year or two younger than me, probably banging out some discordant din on my beloved piano…
But I quelled it as I looked around the grounds I once loved, at the flower beds and the forest, as dark and mysterious as ever. We strolled into the walled garden, my old hiding place where I could read and imagine myself far away, with Alfie sitting at my feet or chasing fruitlessly after an insect. Parts of it were overgrown now, with a few colourful flowers peeping up bravely.
"I try to keep in in good order, but it's hard, you understand, with my arthritis, and now I don't even have Louis to help… There were two other lads helping me but they went off to the war as well. One got another job after he was demobbed, the other's too badly injured to work here anymore. I'm hoping his younger brother will come to work here when he leaves school this summer…"
"It's fine, Antoine, I'm sure you're doing the best you can." I reassured him.
"Would you like to go inside the house?" he asked me again.
This time I knew the answer.
"No thank you, Antoine, I've seen all I want to see."
Just like in my dream, I would have to be content with looking through the window. I knew I would never enter that house again.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Having thanked my gracious hosts and obtained Raoul's new address, I took my leave and departed the village on the Paris bus, which arrived on time, much to the astonishment of the other passengers. For the entire journey my head was full of conflicting thoughts and I knew I would have to write about this trip as soon as possible, in order to remember it. But the hardest part of my trip was still ahead of me.
The neighbourhood Raoul lived in was part of the affluent and comfortable Paris Ouest district, and I found it relatively easily. Again and again I wondered if I was doing the right thing but I'd travelled so far and couldn't just return to America yet. I had to visit him. He was not my father but I could not simply reject him. Not after everything I now knew.
The door was answered by an elderly maid who showed me inside while eyeing me up suspiciously, probably doubtful that I was her employer's stepson.
When I entered the room where he was sitting, he looked up from his newspaper and my heart jolted in my chest.
He was old. He could not be more than forty-four years old yet his hair was almost completely grey and there were deep lines around his eyes and mouth. He looked haggard and tired, with no traces of that "handsome young man in the Opera box".
"Gustave! I didn't think you'd actually come!" His tone was restrained and quiet, rather than surprised.
"Of course I was going to come, I promised! I had to..."
He got up and shook my hand, never taking his eyes off me. We stood there for several moments, just looking at each other, remembering the last time we'd met… Eventually when the silence became overwhelming he invited me to sit, making some comment about how well I was looking. I did not return the compliment.
The conversation was fairly banal at first. We spoke about the voyage, the weather, the neighbourhood he was living in.. It was like talking to a visitor in Phantasma: "Where are from? Oh, that must a nice place to live. You've travelled a long way, haven't you?" Eventually I told him about visiting the chateau and having lunch with Antoine and Jeanne.
"Louis was killed in the war, I expect they told you that," he said softly.
"Yes and about Alfie too, it's all..very sad. Such a terrible war." And such a platitude, coming from someone who spent it all in either a music conservatory or in an amusement park. I looked around me at the small but pleasant apartment, recognising some of the furniture from the chateau.
"Mother died of Spanish flu last September," he stated quietly, with a hint of sadness.
"I'm so sorry to hear that. It sounds like it was a terrible epidemic. She must have been in her seventies, though, I'm not quite sure..?"
"Yes, she was seventy three and she was bitter and hateful to the end. I wanted to write to you and tell you before this but the mail was so unreliable during the war, as you know."
I shook my head, still unable to understand how Grandmother could never accept Mother. And now I would never know. So many questions would remain unanswered.
Sylvie and Francois were fine, he told me, as were Gabrielle and Robert who were still living in England, their three daughters married with families by now. But my "cousin" Richard had been at the Front as an army officer and had been permanently blinded in an explosion. I thought of our long-ago fight and felt a twinge of guilt. I felt no desire to visit him but I could not gloat over his sad fate. Raoul told me the long litany of deaths and injuries among the boys of the parish and others who I had once known. Spanish flu had claimed many victims in addition to Grandmother, including Berthe, our cook who had stayed with us after our disaster. It was hard to listen to it all, knowing I had been so cossetted in America. And to think I once wanted to fight for this country and possible get myself killed or mutilated….
"You only changed your name last year? I would have thought he would change it straight away." Raoul remarked, trying to change the subject.
"No, he waited and let me choose. It felt like the right thing to do. But I wasn't sure if you were happy with the idea, I wrote and told you but you never wrote back."
He shrugged. "I don't know why you needed my blessing." His voice was matter-of-fact rather than bitter and I rubbed the back of my neck nervously before continuing.
"I just wanted to tell you... I hope you didn't mind…"
"Nothing to do with me any more. It's only right you should have your father's name… But, tell me, what was he like as a father? Did he.. treat you well?"
"His name is Erik, and yes... he was kind to me. He still is. I'm still living with him and always will. He was just wonderful when I was grieving over Mother; he knew just how to cheer me up, with his music and stories. The things he taught me… He's a genius, truly he is. He did everything that a father should do."
That last remark slipped out by accident but he did not seem to be hurt or surprised by it. "That is good to know. You always sounded happy in your letters, but I wondered sometimes… Even on the ship coming home I worried.."
"You did? But you left me there! You said it was for the best."
"I know. Don't you see? It was for the best. Gustave, I-I could never give Christine what she wanted when she was alive. The least I could do for her was honour her dying wish. Anyway, I couldn't be a father to you, we both know that. He knows you better than I ever did, because you are a part of him."
The clock ticked and we sat there looking at the carpet.
"I loved you, you know that?" I asked him eventually.
He looked up, and I continued, gently, softly.
"I loved you and wanted to share my interests with you but you couldn't. You were afraid. I realise that now. I understand and that's what I wanted to tell you. Papa has told me everything."
"You mean-"
"Everything that happened at the Opera House, before I was born. The real story. I know what he did to you and Mother and how he let you both go. You had nightmares about that night, didn't you? And you had to look at me every day, mocking you without even knowing it. I know and I'm sorry. I'm sorry it all happened and I want you to know I don't hate you for it. I just wish I'd known before, but it would have scared me. It still does, if I'm honest. Sometimes Papa scares me, with his anger and his darkness-"
"And yet you still live with him?"
"He has no-one else, Raoul." I stopped when I realised what I'd called him. "And he is so different now, despite everything. He would never do those things again, I know that. He has me now and I love him, even without his mask."
"I did wonder if he would tell you," was all he said but I could not read his expression or his tone.
We both sat quietly for a while, just staring into space or studying the pattern on the carpet. The maid brought tea which we hardly touched and the clock ticked, a branch tapped against the window and a dog barked at a distance.
"When are you going back?" he asked after an interminable silence.
"In a few days. I was hoping to visit Mother's grave. Perhaps you would come with me?"
"If-if you would like me to, yes, I will…"
OOOOOOOOOOOOO
Graveyards always seem to be cold but this particular one was windy too and we shivered as we made our way over to the Daae family tomb. I shivered even more as I thought of Papa hiding here, waiting for Mother to try and win her back... Inexplicably I glanced around me, almost expecting to see him emerge from behind a tombstone, his black cloak swirling in the wind… That's ridiculous I thought he wouldn't have followed me all this way... would he?
Raoul left me alone for a while and I wondered how he felt when he visited her here.
With sadness in my heart, I studied the simple inscription: Here lies Christine de Chagny beloved wife and mother. The dates of her birth and death were underneath. It didn't seem enough for her, somehow. It felt so strange to be finally here at my mother's resting place, so far from where I now lived. Both my "fathers" had agreed that I shouldn't attend the funeral as it would be too upsetting, and my papa seemed to regret this now, as did I. But I had promised myself that I would visit someday and here I was.
"I've come at last, Mother," I "told" her softly. "I can't believe it will be twelve years this September. I still miss you so much, you know. I'm older now, I'm not that little boy that you used to tuck in at night, but I wish you were still with me. "
I tried to fight back the tears, telling myself I was too old to cry now.
"Mister Y – Papa – has been bringing me up, just like you wanted him too. You know that, I'm sure - I've always thought you're looking down on me from.. somewhere better. It's hard sometimes, when we fall out, or he gets into one of his dark moods. Well, I guess you knew what his temper was like. He's told me all about his life – I suppose he told you as well, and it's just awful, he needs so much love and sometimes I feel I can't give it to him.… But you always told me to look with my heart, and I've tried to do that ever since. I've tried to love him, and I do. You were right, that night on the beach, you were right to leave me in his care although the idea frightened me at the time. You were able to love him, and forgive him, and that's what I must do.
The two of you should have been able to raise me together. Things should have been different. I'm sorry that you felt so alone when you were alive, especially towards the end. I wish I could have done more for you. I wish you could have told me things, but you just wanted to protect me, I know that. We didn't know what was ahead of us when we sailed off on that ship to America. Maybe you could have started your career again after that performance? Who knows? Meg…Meg is locked away now in an institution but I still can't forgive her, not yet. You should be on a stage singing, not here, not in this place…"
I wiped a tear away with my handkerchief, feeling like a child again.
"I love you Mother and I always will. You once said that you would always be proud of me and I hope you still are. I'm going back soon, going back to my father. I will stay with him always and take care of him, just like he took care of me. America is my home now, and I have Papa's surname. But I will never forget you, never…"
Raoul was standing beside me now and the two of us stood there for a while as the cold wind blew around us, lost in our thoughts.
"I'll keep visiting here, I promise," he told me brokenly. There were tears in his eyes and he turned away from me, ashamed.
I continued to stay in the hotel for the five days I stayed in Paris but Raoul and I met each morning and explored the city together, the parks, cafés and even the Eiffel Tower. At first, he seemed surprised that I wanted to spend any time with him, but it worked out well and the current political situation gave us plenty to talk about and prevented too many awkward silences.
After a little deliberation we even managed a night at the Opera House, to see a performance of Carmen. Apart from the elderly doorman who greeted Raoul warmly, there was no-one familiar to him in the building, either among the cast or the other staff, and most of the patrons did not recognise him. I drank in the sights around me, not just the sumptuous and tragic opera itself but the opulent surroundings, with the plush red seats, Rococo ceiling and gilt statues. How many of these patrons knew of the other world, far below us? This building was where it all happened, twenty three years ago…
It was no longer possible to visit the underground lake which disappointed me at the time but perhaps it was for the best.
We did not visit a bar during my visit but I saw Raoul's well stocked drinks cabinet in his apartment and I was not naïve enough to think that he had quit drinking completely. He did not talk about it and I did not ask him, but I hoped that he was at least drinking less than he used to. I honestly think we got on better in those few days than in the ten years we'd lived together.
We were sitting in the Bois on one of our days together, when Raoul told me that Professor Chapelle had died of cancer two years ago.
"I didn't know until after his funeral, unfortunately. He moved away around the time he left us but his niece wrote and told me, of course the letter got delayed... I know you were fond of him.."
Another part of my childhood was gone. I thought of how I used to stand at the window and watch for him coming up the drive.
"Mother, the Professor's here!."
"Very good, Gustave, get your books quickly and don't keep him waiting."
"Oh, I hope he doesn't make me do Latin today!"
"That's so sad. I owe him a lot, you know. He taught me so much and it was very useful when I started school in America. The poor fellow…"
I asked about Adele, our maid, who was thankfully still alive and had recently married. She was now living in Rouen, which made me think of Papa, and had stayed with Raoul until just before her wedding. She used to look after me sometimes when Raoul and Mother went out in the evening and it was a relief that she was happy now.
Raoul did not want to talk much about the events of the Opera House but he did tell me about his confrontation with Papa in the bar the night before Mother died and the bet they made. The details were not a complete shock to me- after all I knew my Papa fairly well by now and I'd had a few suspicions anyway. To be honest I just wanted to leave everything in the past – or at least that was what I told myself.
Raoul came to the railway station with me on my last day, to see me off. We stood on the platform side by side, all the sorrow and fears of the past finally laid to rest. As we waited together, he looked at me with such sadness that I almost regretted leaving him. But he put a hand on my shoulder awkwardly and addressed me solemnly.
"Go back to him, Gustave. Go back to your true father, the one who understands you more than I ever could. There's nothing for you here anymore. My people.. families like mine are dying out now. We're anachronisms in this new world and soon there will be no place for us. Go back to America where no-one cares about titles and all that... kind of thing. But please.. will you still write to me?"
He sounded so nervous and almost childlike when he spoke that last sentence.
"Of course I will – Father."
"You don't have to call... Oh, Gustave.. if only you had been my son!"
Just then, the train approached the station and we could hardly hear each other for the noise. When it pulled up, he opened the carriage door for me and we looked at each other, hardly knowing what to say. Finally we shook hands, but I hesitated before getting in, desperately wanting him to finally embrace me, not as his son but as a friend. But there was an impatient crowd behind us, trying to board the train and the moment was gone. I had to be content with leaning out a window to say my final goodbye. He wished me a pleasant journey and I told him to take care of himself just as the train pulled out, but I continued to look out the window until the train went under a bridge and he was lost from view.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Despite my intentions to the contrary, I found myself standing on the deck as France slipped away from me for the last time. When it was finally out of sight I returned to my cabin trying to put all my thoughts on to paper, just as I'm doing now, all these years later. During those nights on board, my dreams were confused and jumbled.. Louis and I rode the Ferris wheel together while Mother sang on the stage of the Phantasma theatre which somehow turned into the Opera Garnier and Papa sailed a gondola along an underground lake which opened out into the Hudson River… Two worlds colliding, but I knew which one I belonged to.
I looked forward to going home, to my real home and seeing Papa again, knowing how much he would have missed me. And I had missed the Trio, George, my music and all the wonders of Phantasma. Soon the season would be starting again and I was excited about what it would bring.
I thought of the de Chagny estate again during the crossing but now all I could see were Mother and Raoul fleeing there that night with Mother still wearing the wedding dress, or I saw her sneaking out that other night to visit Papa before she married someone else, and remembered all the secrets hidden from me…
But there was another estate, the one I've chosen to remember, where two boys play together and climb trees, with a little brown dog running around playfully. Where liveried carriages glide up the drive and elegantly dressed ladies emerge, to take tea from gold rimmed cups and nibble on dainty sandwiches. Where the flower beds are in full bloom, where the forest is full of mystery and darkness, where delicious meals are served at the dining room table. Where a mother and her little boy fill the house with sweet melodies and where nights are filled with fairy tales and lullabies, with Little Lotte and her Angel of Music…
And somewhere in that unreachable parallel world, my old childhood bedroom still waits for me.