Nadir

No one died.

They were bruised and bloodied, all, particularly the doctor who had been on the receiving end of his wrath, the one who had dared to try to touch the mask. He was sprawled inelegantly on the floor, his throat purple and inflamed from where it had been nearly crushed beneath skeletal fingers. He was silent but alive. They were all alive.
Perhaps that was attributable to his wasted condition. Or perhaps it was simply a miracle—that seemed more likely. He had never let little matters like health stand in the way of his bloodlust. It was a miracle.

I had telephoned the emergency personnel after I was sure he had gone. I needn't have waited to be certain of his departure; he was gone, and I knew it. Exactly where to, I hadn't the faintest idea, but I knew what he sought. Whom he sought.
While I waited with the injured until the paramedics arrived, one of the women, the nurse who had been with him before the crowd's arrival, began to stir. A little flame of panic arose in my throat. She appeared to have knocked her head against the wall when he had…reacted to their efforts to subdue him. I irreverently prayed that the trauma to her head would cause her to forget the entire affair.

But no, the woman—Valerius, was it?— was stirring, moaning as she woke, doubtless feeling the onslaught of pain behind her temples.

I hurried over to her and knelt by her side, concern drawing my brows together despite my trepidation. It was a risk, I knew, making my existence known. And yet I could not stand idly by and allow her to suffer alone.

"Madame?" I inquired softly. Where were the paramedics? Were they not meant to arrive promptly? "Madame, can you hear me?"

"What…Oh, God…"

"Doctors are on their way, Madame. Everyone is alive, don't worry—you simply hit your head…your ankle is twisted, let me—"

"Where is he?"

I cast a quick glance to the heavens, silently pleading with Allah for her questions to cease. Yet she knew too much already. I could not treat her with such condescension as to ignore her questions.

"Gone," I whispered, my voice faltering. "He is gone."

"How?" She let out another moan, her eyes squinting tighter in pain behind the rims of her skewed glasses. I straightened them gently for her, almost inadvertently, and before I realized what I had done, her hand was upon mine. "How? He…he can't…he can't walk…he's ill—"

"He is not," I sighed, dread settling like dead weight in my abdomen.

"I knew it," she said, so quietly that her words were nearly inaudible. "I knew he…I knew he was…Who was he, who…?"

Suddenly confusion alighted over her features, and her eyes fluttered open, still gauzy with the haze of delirium.

"Who…who are you?"

I swallowed, shaking my head, and I told her the truth.

"No one, Madame."

And finally, blessedly, I heard the rapid footfalls of the paramedics coupled with their shouting outside the door. I made to pull away, but Mme. Valerius desperately pulled me back, as forcefully as she could in her weakened state.

"Please…who are you?"

I hesitated and stared at her for a moment, ready to tell her everything then and there. Did she not deserve the truth? She knew, she had said. She knew, if not exactly what he was, then at least that he was more than he seemed. She was attuned to it. She knew.

Did she see it in me, as well?

I squeezed her hand as the door began to open, and quickly pulled away amidst her feeble entreaties to stay. My conscience yelped in protest, and I passed one last wearied glance over the unconscious—but alive!—crowd sprawled at my feet. Some were beginning to stir. How could I leave them when I was the only one in this world who could provide them with answers? How could I leave them when I was finally equipped to end it all with those answers?

But I would end it all—they would live, I felt it. They would live, and in leaving them and seeking him, I would end it all.

I was weary. I bore the brunt of the ages upon my shoulders. Was this his burden, as well? No wonder, then, he was so scarred. I had always thought him the stronger for it, had always assumed he was indomitable, impenetrable. And then she had broken him.

Or had she?

For did he not remain? Now, this very moment, he was driven forward by her. We—he— had come this far.

If that was not indomitable, I did not know what was.

"Please," the woman said with sudden force, jerking me out of my reverie. Her confusion cracked me in two. "Please…who are you?"

I shook my head, felt my back bowed beneath the effort. Weary.

"I do not think I know anymore, Madame."

And before she could utter another word, before the paramedics has finished pushing open the door, I was gone.

Several fruitless days passed, and I did not find him. I had thought I might discover him collapsed in the alleyway near the hospital, or hidden within the shadows of some dilapidated building, but, there were simply too many alleyways, too many old buildings, and, predictably, I could find no trace of him. I felt the fool for believing that I could; after all, was it not my doom to pursue him in vain for eternity? For that is what it seemed. I had spent the better part of my life—that life, I should say, that life, in pursuit of him. And now it seemed I was bound to do the same in this life, as well.

I suppose I'd known it all along. I suppose I'd known I would not be rid of him, that I could not be rid of any of them. For we were all of us bound, whether to repeat, I did not know.

But I would do my utmost this time to ensure that would not be the case.

Still, I had enjoyed those twenty years of idleness. I am not a man who relishes action. That is odd for me to say, I suppose, given my history and my profession. A man of the law, a chief of police who cringes at the very thought of a game of cat-and-mouse? Too odd.

It isn't, really. I've always cherished peace—order, tranquility. That is what drove me to it—the police force, I mean. Foolish, perhaps. Foolish, indeed. Yet I was young then—by "then," I mean then—and young men are so often enraptured by optimism and unbridled confidence. It is cruel that life tears it so viciously from them. It was cruel that such an endeavor ended steeped in such corruption, such destruction. I had merely wanted to further peace, order, tranquility.

I cannot help but think of it still, Persia. I do wish I did not think of it—it suffers enormously now. But did it not suffer in the same way, then? I cannot think of it for too long.

Let me turn instead to those twenty years of idleness—in the now, not then— of fleeting, feeble peace, order, and tranquility. I'd sought, upon…arriving… my old quarters in the Rue de Rivoli. Gone, of course. No, wait, let me amend that—not gone. They were still there. The building was still there. It was simply occupied, used for another purpose entirely.

Underwear. My quant old dwelling and those that had surrounded it had been cleared out, refurbished, and converted into a ladies' underwear shop. It was quite disheartening, to say the least. I cared not a whit for Victoria or for her Secret, whatever it might have been— all I knew was that there was a display devoted to hideously pink brassieres where my writing desk had once stood. An equally violent pink rug in the corner where I had kept my prayer mat. Enormous portraits of women abandoning all traces of modesty upon the walls that had once so proudly displayed my tapestries.

I tell you, that did little to lighten my spirits. Yet there was nothing that could be done. That world—my world—had long since been erased. I knew that I stood little chance in this one if I persisted in clinging so desperately to the last.

I made do. By necessity, I have always been very adaptable. It took some time, certainly, to adjust to the customs, to the rhythm of this place—it is infinitely faster than even my chaotic life had been. It has been a learning process, and over the course of it, I have garnered countless curious stares. Some simply attribute my eccentricities to cultural differences, for which I am grateful. It is much easier feigning unfamiliarity with Western customs than attempting to explain exactly why, for example, I never fail to exclaim in wonder upon seeing a television, or a motor vehicle, or, wonder of all wonders, a computer. I cannot tell you how many hours I have spent marveling over the devices in the electronics section of the department store, only to be met with the clerk's bemused, "What, you've never seen a cell phone before?"

The irony of it all has provided many much-needed laughs on my part, I shall say that much. Humor is the mightiest of virtues.

In any case, I made do once I was certain I could assimilate easily enough. Took up several obscure positions—gas station attendant, cashier, janitorial worker, a bookkeeper for a pet grooming service...now, an archivist for a local, rather unremarkable museum. Banal work, all of it, and although I was aware that I could risk drawing attention to myself, I still longed for the driving pace of the police force. The shah's notion of law enforcement had been morally bankrupt, to say the least, and I did my best as chief to weed out corruption from within without capturing his attention (and having my tongue cut out in the process). Yet even still, I'd relished the work, felt an obligation to restore some sense of justice to a nation wrought with chaos.

He had often dismissed my efforts.
"Really, Nadir, must you play the mother hen?" he would say. "It is a damnable waste of energy; only an imbecile would hold fast to such a blatantly futile endeavor. What the devil is the matter with you? "

I was an imbecile, clearly. That was what was the matter with me. I was only one man, after all. Who was I to think I could affect any sort of change amidst such destruction? Who was I to think I could change him?

I could not. No longer. All I could do now was curb the damage before it occurred. And this time, I would do the job correctly. There would be no more deaths, no more suffering. I would have no more of this madness. I was too old. Too weary. Quite finished. I did not know what it would take to finally subdue him, to stop him before he reached her and wrought his destruction anew, yet there were no lengths to which I would not go to ensure those sufferings would remain where they belonged: in the grave.

Of course, I was in a quandary. I had no idea what had become of the girl, or her handsome beau. I had no idea where she was, or what she was doing, or what she knew.

What I did have, however, was access to someone who surely did know. A telephone call was in order.

I wondered if Antoinette Giry was as befuddled by telephones as I.

Erik

It was a binary of the strangest sort. So musical a discord. I had never been so fully myself and so utterly not myself.

The pavement seemed the most unusual, the most bizarre. A reflection of my state of mind at the time, I suppose, and yet I was transfixed by the pavement, solid, cold, rooted in reality beneath my unsteady feet. I studied it intensely as it slid backwards with each step I took. How was it that something could possess such fortitude, such solidity? Did such a thing yet exist? Such a vestige of reality?

Rain snaked down my neck, seeping into the rough fabric of the…robe? Night shirt? What was it, exactly? Dreadful, that much was certain. My kingdom for a cravat.

The rain was frantically persistent, drumming upon my fingers and the tops of my feet, pounding atop my skull before unapologetically creeping beneath the smooth porcelain of the mask.

I removed it. Not a soul was present. Not a soul would see.

And I walked, haltingly at first, feebly. I felt most ill indeed, and yet indescribably invigorated. It was a marvel I could move at all. I was certain I cut a dreadful figure.

But then, that was nothing new, was it? A dreadful figure, surely, likely worse than ever before. Quite shocking, that. I had not thought it possible to be worse.

Yet there was a jarring warmth coursing through my limbs, drumming through my blood, filling my lungs and pulsing up and ever outward until my vision sharpened and the world snapped into crisp focus. Every detail in the alley was magnified tenfold—the pockmarked façade of the brick-walled buildings, the grime sloughed into the cracks that snaked through the cobblestones beneath my feet, the raindrops glinting on a shard of glass that jutted upwards like a crag emerging from a battered sea of gray.

My breath came in labored bursts, and my chest heaved with the effort of motion. I was obliged to place one hand upon the wall to prevent collapse. Irritation flared from within the cobwebs of my long-neglected mind. This would not do, this weakness, these quivering fingertips, this bowed spine. It was waning, yes, waning as that familiar heightened awareness began to slowly crackle with a long-forgotten white-hot heat. But not quickly enough. I was weak, too weak. Damnably weak. Vulnerable. The little display back in the room had been but a momentary burst of strength, a flitting deus ex machina that had been gracious enough to afford me escape, but nothing more.

It was immensely irritating. Infuriating, in fact. I had spent my patience. This frail limping gait, this achingly slow progress was maddening. I had bided my time so diligently, after all, and yet there I stood, quaking to the very core as I inched my way through the alley, Lazarus resurrected yet still querulously shaking off the grave's lingering white-knuckled grip.

The day was waning, however. The sky was sinking to a deep, saturated darkness that seemed to welcome me in its arms like a prodigal son.

First Lazarus, then the prodigal son. I truly had gone mad: biblical references hardly seemed appropriate given my…situation.

But this was a situation of biblical proportions, was it not? For whatever had happened continually baffled me. Defied all logic. Yes, I was tugged forward by what seemed like an instinctive throbbing. Yes, I knew. And yet I did not. I did not. Another curious binary. I knew, and I did not. I lived and yet I did not. I was, and yet surely, I was not. Not here, at least. Then,yes. Here…

Here, I simply did not exist.

I do not know if you have ever been confronted with the knowledge of your own nonexistence, but it is most disorienting. Hardly conducive to a sound mind, and quite the thing to lead one to madness.

From within that thick haze of delirium, I had always found Nadir's attempts to coax me back to sanity these last twenty years intensely amusing. I never said as much, of course—I never said anything at all—and yet the man's bullheaded persistence was nothing short of hysterical.

I absentmindedly wondered where he had scurried off to after my departure. He had likely tended to the casualties before exiting the building, only to resume that familiar act of running about the country like a headless chicken in pursuit of the miscreant. Namely, me. Nadir was ludicrously predictable in that sense.

He was not an idiot, however. Meddlesome, yes, blinded and set to bumbling by morality, yes, but he was not an imbecile. He may have been predictable, but his predictability was drawn from shrewd reasoning. He would seek her out immediately, before I could reach her.

Of course, I could not very well have that. That would unduly complicate matters that were already unduly complicated. The solution, however, was hardly as complex. I would simply have to kill him.

I could do nothing, however, until I fully regained my senses, to say nothing of my ability to walk without staggering like a dying drunkard. It took several hours—hours!—to make any noticeable progress through the city, and though I felt my strength returning, I was still left aching when I stopped near the back entrance of what appeared to be a derelict warehouse. The rain had intensified by that point, and I was drenched to the bone as I numbly surveyed the crumbling building looming above me like a disgraced ancient temple. An apt shelter for the present, so long as I did not remain within its rusted confines for too long. Long enough to regain my faculties, to plan, to seek—

Realization hit me suddenly, mercilessly, its leaden weight settling painfully in my abdomen.

I hadn't the faintest idea where I was.

A city, yes, of that much I was certain. In France, yes—the accents of the orderlies and of dear old DesMarais were undoubtedly native. Undoubtedly Parisian, in fact.

But this was not the Paris I knew.

Again that disconnect, again that warring binary: This was Paris. I knew it. I felt it. Drawn forward as if by some inexorable divinity, I felt to my very core that this was Paris.

But it was not. It was utterly, profoundly, severely not.

A monumental Something was radically off-color. Wrong. Yes, that was it: wrong. This was all wrong, quite wrong. It was not merely the altered cityscape, the onslaught of unfamiliar stimuli. No, it was something deeper, woven in a steel mesh into the very air itself, buzzing about, increasing in pitch, clanging in a cacophonous disconnect so unsettling, so entirely wrongthat it threatened to tear me to shreds.

Wrong! it wailed, You are wrong! You do not belong! Away!

It sensed my nonexistence, this Paris. That was it, surely: it sensed my nonexistence and, like a great beast panicked by the appearance of a foreign foe, it threatened to expel me.

I confess I was sorely tempted to acquiesce to its demands, so painful was this discord. It clawed at my soul—or what was left of it, perhaps—and did its utmost to kill me on the spot. It had been trying to kill me for twenty years. But it could not.

Because I did not exist. One cannot kill something that does not exist.

Furthermore, I could not allow it to wreak havoc. I had a purpose. I was starved of that purpose, and I had not endured unimaginable tortures only to be bested by that temperamental Something that demanded my departure.

She was there.

There—I felt that, too, as strongly as I felt Paris—she was there, somewhere, perhaps in the very heart of that dreadful discord. The ceaseless thought once again came frantically racing through my mind, quickening my pulse.

Does she feel it?

Perhaps it was merely another product of my madness—I am quite mad, you see—yet I felt her. Here. Alive. Breathing. Beautiful. Distant, yes, too distant, and painfully so, but I had not been jerked away from suspended animation on a whim. She was here. Alive. Hers was living, breathing, substantial redemption. Glory, infinite loveliness, and it beckoned to me with a warmth that, despite its distance, lost none of its radiance.

My own. My own.

She had slipped from my grasp once. She would not do so again.