Ch 151
Phelan was still in his robe when I walked into his suite. I had changed into a fresh pair of pajama pants and matching shirt partially unbuttoned as the bath had left me feeling quite warm and surprisingly ravenous.
The pleasant scent from the perfumed water clung to my flesh and remained in the air. Phelan had opened two of the windows to encourage a breeze through his suite, the evening air cool and welcome after the humidity inside the bathroom.
Lan glanced at me when I walked into the room, his attention on a book in his lap. His robe was loosely tied, his chest and upper abdomen exposed through the plush fabric.
"What do you do that keeps you in such impeccable physical condition?" I asked as I stood in the doorway between our suites.
He looked up and stared at me for a moment, his head turned to the side and brow furrowed. "Has someone paid you a large sum to dole out endless compliments?" he groused.
I wasn't sure how he would address me following the previous conversation, but I suspected his usual tone of irritation was a sign he was his disagreeable self and nothing had changed between us, for which I was grateful.
"Elivra promised me twenty thousand francs."
"In bird seed, I hope." Phelan put his book down and pulled up his sleeve. He flexed his right arm, quite unnecessarily, displaying his bicep. "To answer your question, I am physically active, Kire," he said.
"Doing what?"
"Well, I spent the summer moving rocks in a quarry that I intend to use for my incoming students, and for the remainder of the year, when I am not hauling stone, I enjoy keeping up my physical strength in the gymnasium at the university with Brussels' greatest athletes."
"Why?" I asked. It seemed somewhat unnecessary to me.
"Why? Because," he answered. "It keeps my mind sound."
"Your mind? How?"
"Why do you walk the length of the city at night?"
"Because Bessie is a rather lazy hound and needs her exercise. If I didn't walk her, I suspect she would be permanently affixed to the dining room floor by my chair."
"And before you had Bessie? You were already an avid evening walker from what Madame Giry told me. I must say, she is not pleased with you venturing out in the middle of the night and I tend to agree with her."
"Most nights I have difficulty sleeping." I paused. Nothing truly silenced my mind, but an hour roaming the city with Bessie trotting alongside me turned the constant buzz into whispers. "Perhaps I should carry Bessie home from now on and reap greater benefits."
"That would be a sight to behold, little brother. To save you the trouble and Bessie the humiliation, in the morning we shall partake in some rigorous activity."
"Rigorous?" I eyed him skeptically.
"Blood-pumping activity."
Before I could ask what he had in mind, Harald knocked on the door and delivered our sandwiches, hot tea and yet another tray of cookies–the second dozen of the day. I stepped back from the doorway and out of sight as my hair piece and mask were still within the bathroom.
Harald, like his father, spoke limited French, but was able to communicate that the buzzer by the door could be used until ten, which was when the hotel desk closed for the night. Anything after ten would require guests to walk to their residence behind the hotel.
"We will not disturb you, Herr Lund," my brother promised. "You have exceeded our expectations thus far."
"Very good, Herr Kimmer. Good night to you and your brother. Sleep well."
Once the delivery was done, I made myself comfortable on my brother's bed while he made tea. The bed itself was soft while still maintaining its form and I was certain this is what Aria felt when she tucked herself into the crook of my arm.
Lan wheeled the cart toward the bed and placed the tray in the middle before proceeding to fluff several pillows, which he did quite enthusiastically. Once satisfied, he reclined on the other side of the bed, his back supported by several of the pillows. The tea was left on the cart to keep it from spilling onto the sheets and mattress.
"This is heavenly," he said as he stretched out.
I nodded in agreement.
"Kire," my brother said in between bites.
"Lan." I sank further into the mattress, cradled by a feather bed and satin sheets that were gloriously smooth and cool to the touch. There were at least a dozen pillows–six on my side and six on my brother's side of his bed, each one of different firmness. The luxuries I'd first considered frivolous for our travels now seemed like necessities after a long first day. Once I returned home, I fully intended to order additional pillows as the two on our bed hardly seemed like enough now that I had experienced an unmatched level of pampering.
Lan pulled out a cucumber covered in cream cheese and nibbled on the dark green flesh, hesitating. "May I ask you something?"
I nodded, despite my reservations on what he would ask me, and placed a sandwich onto a small plate painted with swans along the outer edge. I doubted anything could sour my mood given my physical comfort.
"When did you know that Christine Daae was not the one?" he asked.
Immediately I realized I was quite mistaken as his question caught me off-guard. I looked at him from the corner of my eye and considered his inquiry with great care as I placed my plate onto the nightstand.
"I would say probably in April of this year," I said, spreading my hands on the cool sheets.
"April?" Lan sounded as surprised as I felt. "What made you realize it wasn't meant to be?"
I inhaled. It felt as though a lifetime had passed since Christine had taken the stage outside of the World Exhibition, since I had stood a careful distance behind the onlookers craning their necks to get a glimpse of the celebrated soprano's anticipated return to Paris.
There had been nothing I had desired more than hearing her sing, to see her stroll confidently across the stage, head held high, slender hand waving to the crowd.
Every muscle in my body tightened the moment she was announced. My breath paused. My heart felt heavy and twisted. My gut, empty for days, felt filled with agitated butterflies.
My deity. My treasure. My son's beloved mother. My Christine.
But she wasn't mine at all. And I had never expected to speak of those erratic moments.
"You don't need to answer," Phelan said when I remained silently pensive.
"I suppose that I realized we would never truly be happy together because she didn't care about Alex and would never be the mother he deserved." I shook my head in dismay, recalling the restless nights I had spent scouring newspaper articles and preparing for her return, a reunion I had convinced myself would be favorable. She would see her son, our son, and finally admit that she wanted to stay in Paris and be part of our family, that she needed us with her just as much as we needed her in our lives.
"Did she care for you, do you think?" he asked.
The question stung far worse than it should have, and I felt strangely bitter in answering with any ounce of truth. Christine had wounded my pride as much as she had ripped through every emotion I could possibly feel.
"In a way," I said.
The words felt false once I spoke them, a lie I had told myself repeatedly for years. It galled me that I still insisted Christine had cared for me, that my affection for her, in some minuscule way, had been reciprocated.
Lan turned his head and studied me in silence. I loosened the grip on my cucumber sandwich and the insides began to slide out, landing on my pant leg.
"Christine could be the most sweet and gentle soul," I said as I grabbed the plate from the nightstand and began gathering bits and pieces of the sandwich. "Gracious and kind when she spoke, and then she was…she was not herself. As time went on, her mood became progressively worse, but at the start, before everything, before she knew what I was…"
"Who you were, not what," Phelan replied.
I smiled to myself at his insistence to protect me from my own disparaging words.
"No, she thought I was The Angel of Music."
Phelan's expression sobered and he searched my face. "I beg your pardon? What is The Angel of Music?"
While I pieced my sandwich back together, grateful for the distraction, I told my brother of Christine's father and his passing when she was a child, of the stories he had told her of an angel who would come to her when he entered heaven, an entity that would love and comfort her in times of sorrow and surround her with the most ethereal music.
"I had spent the day thinking of our uncle, as the anniversary of his death approached."
In silence I recalled how weary I had felt, like my bones were made of iron, my body weighted down by sorrow. The pattern of mourning and melancholy was an endless loop, but the autumn months were worse as the days shortened and the weather became less favorable for venturing outdoors.
I went through weeks of restlessness, unable to close my eyes for more than a few moments, followed by several days where exhaustion nailed me to my sheets and I could barely lift my head. When I could not sleep, I composed and when I could not bear to leave my bed, I arranged the music in my mind.
"All day long I thought of his death and how I had sat beside his body in the rain begging him to come back to me. I hadn't thought of him in months, perhaps years at that point. For the first time since I buried him, I felt as though someone else understood the magnitude of my loss."
I recalled the heaviness of my solitude felt more acute than it had in quite some time. The sensation was often unbearable, each breath a struggle, but the day before our paths had fatefully crossed, sadness suffocated me, my world of constant night impossible to navigate alone.
"Did you ever think of telling her the truth of your identity?"
He had finally stopped chewing on the single piece of cucumber and took another bite, which he thankfully swallowed rather than gnawing on it like a cow chewing cud.
I rolled my tongue along the inside of my cheek, struggling with how to answer a question that had crossed my mind hundreds of times.
"I convinced myself she was better off not knowing. I thought it would perhaps be detrimental to her if she realized I wasn't the angel her father had promised."
"You were Don Juan and the Angel of Music rolled into one," he said under his breath.
"You were at the performance, correct?" I asked.
Phelan thankfully handed me a napkin as I had cream cheese all over my fingers and pant leg.
"I was," he answered. "Seated in one of the last rows in the orchestra section. It was the first year that Val didn't renew his theater subscription, so he didn't have his typical seats mid-orchestra. We weren't speaking at that time anyhow, so I doubt he would have invited me, but yes, I was there."
"Did you know that I was…?"
Phelan said nothing for a long moment and I dreaded what he might say. He inhaled and shifted beside me. "Not at first," he said. "Not until…"
He stared at me briefly, his gaze searching my face until I looked away, understand what he implied. The moment Christine had pulled off my mask, everyone within the theater gasped in horror. Silently I wondered how my own brother had reacted.
"In the days that followed, I swore there was something about the music that was familiar, but I think I wanted to believe I remembered you well enough to know what your style would be like as an adult," he said softly. He sat up and took another bite. "It was a very long opera, if I recall."
"Three acts." Two and a half of which had been performed.
"But the first two were a bit drawn out," he said.
I bristled at his comment.
Don Juan Triumphant was supposed to be my life's work, the very essence of my heart and soul laid bare not only for Christine, but for a full house. I had toiled away at my desk for days on end in order to perfect my music before Firmin and Andre were to begin preparations for my opera.
Every waking moment I sat hunched over, burning candles into stumps while drowning in a sea of discarded, crumpled paper and spilled ink until at last my music was ready for the public to find themselves entranced by the most magnificent performance they would ever witness.
"Drawn out?" I groused.
"Will you be upset with me if I give you my honest opinion?"
"That depends on whether your honest opinion is drawn out," I grumbled.
Phelan narrowed his eyes. "You are clearly already upset. Forget I said anything."
"No, no, go on with it," I impatiently muttered.
"Forgive me for saying so, but the second act was rather dull. I found myself critiquing the statues and tapestries while Passarino went on about his master's incredible wealth and sprawling estates and lack of love. And then of course Don Juan reiterates everything Passarino says as though for the last twenty minutes we haven't learned that the hero is lovesick over Aminta."
"Dull?" I questioned. "Are you a ghostwriter for Luc Testan? Dull indeed."
Phelan gave a heavy sigh. "Yes, I am clearly your biggest critic, wanting nothing more than to dissect your work," he dryly said. "But honestly, the whole story of Don Juan and his interest in the maiden seemed like it could have been explained in one aria and not an aria, ballet, and duet. I found myself yawning through the ballet."
"Fair enough." The ballet had not been my favorite part either, but I would never admit to him that it could have been omitted–or that my mind wandered as well as I paced my private box, awaiting the pivotal moment when Christine would become mine.
Phelan turned and looked at me while picking apart his sandwich. "I did try searching for you," he offered. "After everything that transpired."
I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, surprised by his words. "You did?"
He nodded. "You were still on the stage when I called your name. I swore you looked at me, but I suppose you didn't hear me considering I was so far back and everyone closer to the front was..." He took a deep breath. "There was a lot of commotion."
My mouth went dry. I had no recollection of anyone saying my name, not over the screaming–the so-called commotion as my brother had put it. All of my focus had been on the exact moment when I was certain Christine would fall into my arms and never let go. She was meant to be the Aminta to my Don Juan, forever bound to me by our love. Nothing else that night mattered.
"I managed to elbow my way through the retreating crowd and reach the stairs leading to the stage. The gendarmes insisted that I make my way to the exits, but I managed to slip past them and ended up behind the stage where the performers were running in all directions. I started to follow a handful of the ballet dancers who had lanterns in hand and mentioned a cellar."
I sat very still with my lips parted. Once I had managed to flee with Christine, I had no idea what transpired within the theater, nor had I ever cared–until the moment when I realized my brother had been in attendance.
"One moment I was trailing behind them, but then somehow I ended up down a lightless corridor and became quite disoriented. I felt my way down the hall toward the glimmer of torchlight and then I descended a flight of stairs that curved, which further confused me. There were two doors and I picked the one on my right, not realizing I must have crossed the length of the theater. Suddenly I was outside and ushered away from the building by the gendarmes and firemen urging me to distance myself as the building was filled with smoke."
I pictured the theater layout in the back of my mind, the maze of halls, stairs, and doorways that the audience never knew existed, routes that curved and led to doors that only opened from the inside, halls that led to stairways going up or down. For those unfamiliar with the layout it was difficult to navigate.
He had most likely made it to the third cellar and out a door that was meant for deliveries. My brother had made it much further than he realized–a mere two cellars away from where I had fled.
"I was livid when I stepped outside and the door closed behind me," he said with a humorless laugh. "Beside myself with anger that you were within the same building and I couldn't manage to find you. What damnable luck."
"What were your intentions?" I asked. "If you had found me?"
"Truthfully, there was a fifty percent chance I would knock you upside the head for your foolishness."
"And the other fifty?"
He grunted. "Knock you upside the other side of your head. There was a one hundred percent chance I was going to rattle your brain and then tell you I was your brother at which time you would have instantly abandoned the damned theater and returned to your senses. Then, once you were in my apartment, you would compose the most breathtaking opera to ever be written and I would create a series of paintings that would sell for one hundred thousand francs and we would live like kings."
That scenario, as unlikely as I knew it to be, still left me with a sense of longing to rewrite my miserable past. I doubted I would have spared a moment of my time on a man claiming we were brothers. Most likely I would have released a sand bag and left him treading water in one of the many trap doors that released into the lake or beyond.
"I went to speak with Val a few days after the fire," he said. "It had been at least six weeks since we had last spoken and when I came to his home and told him that I was certain the theater ghost was you, he agreed with me. Both of us walked to the theater, but it was boarded up and we found no way to enter, not that either of us expected you to be inside. The next morning I told Val I was going to put a full page ad in the newspaper for you, and he solemnly handed me the obituaries."
We both sat in silence for a long moment, listening to the breeze rustle the curtains. The day that followed the disaster seemed like more of a nightmare than reality. I had lost everything: Christine, my home, and my sanity.
"All of the years spent searching," Phelan said suddenly. "All of the unanswered ads in the newspaper looking for you, returning to Conforeit when the letters stopped, and we were within the same building. You were on the stage, I was in Row T, Seat 3. I went from dreading I would never see you again, to relieved that you were at least alive, to devastated when I read the obituary." Unexpectedly he smiled. "And now here you are, almost inexplicably, alive, well, and lounging in my bed as you did forty years ago, making an absolute mess with your food."
"The sheets are immaculate," I argued. "The only mess is on my pant leg."
He sputtered with laughter. "A jest, Kire," he said quietly, placing his plate back onto the tray, which he returned to the service cart. "And besides, if you did have cucumbers and crumbs all over the sheets I would simply change suites with you."
"As long as you left the cookies," I commented.
"Cookies indeed." He looked at me again, his features softening. "If I may be so bold to inquire, after everything that happened with Christine, how did you know Julia was the one?"
I appreciated that question far more than the one regarding Christine, although I wished to give a more romantic answer than was truthful.
"I should have known the first time she fed me, but unfortunately, I had to have the sense literally beaten into me before I realized she was the other half of my heart."
"She filled you with sweets, I assume?"
"Yes," I replied, chuckling to myself.
"What amuses you?"
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. "The way in which we first met. I believe I told you I was out on my usual walk one evening. The cadence of my breath and shoes against the street made for an interesting rhythm and I had every intention of returning to my bedroom and arranging the music in my head into a concerto. I was quite pleased with myself when I happened to look up as I rounded the corner and there was Julia. We both startled the hell out of one another."
"You were out late, correct?" Phelan asked. I nodded. "What was she doing out of her home?"
"Waiting for me to walk past."
"Truly?" Lan looked over and smiled at me.
"Truly. She invited me into her home and I declined.
"Declined?"
"Twice," I admitted.
"Were you absolutely mad?"
"Deliriously mad," I answered. "It was months before I agreed to stop by her house after my walk, and once I finally accepted, I left at the end of the evening without any intention of ever returning."
"My God, what on earth happened?"
I sniffed. "Well, for one, I arrived at her home an hour later than she had invited me."
"A bit rude on your part."
"Indeed. It was almost one in the morning."
"I take that back. Incredibly inconsiderate. What is wrong with you?" He thumped me in the arm.
"That was not necessary," I said through my teeth, rubbing my arm as I opened my eyes and glared at him.
"What excuse could you possibly have for making that saint of a woman wait an hour for you?"
"Not a very good one. I walked further than I normally would have and ended up a great distance from home, became slightly disoriented in an unfamiliar neighborhood, and stumbled upon her home by accident."
I sighed, wondering why on earth she had bothered to answer the door given my tardiness.
"Why did you walk so far?"
"Nerves," I answered. "I debated the entire walk whether or not I should have accepted her invitation at all. And then I didn't wind my watch and had no idea what hour it was or I most likely would not have paid a visit at all, given the hour."
"That would have gone over well," Phelan muttered. "I suppose you made a favorable impression if she asked you to return."
I shrugged, deciding not to tell him that I had turned down the lamps and moved the chairs further apart as my trepidation got the best of me and I feared what Julia would say or do if she began examining my mask. "I ate several crumpets while Julia did the majority of the talking. The crumpets were delectable."
"You were a perfect gentleman, I see."
I sank lower into the bed, having consumed enough sandwiches to fill my belly, and thought of how I had returned the following evening, hopeful that she had made the same dessert. To my dismay, she had not.
"The second evening, she asked me if I would care to come upstairs," I said.
"Perhaps she didn't want a perfect gentleman," Phelan said under his breath.
"I told her the parlor was suitable."
He raised a brow. "And yet a gentleman you remained."
I smiled to myself. "Presumptions were not worth risking her companionship. There were no false pretenses between us, only two people seated together in her parlor."
"You are good to her," Phelan said. His words were little more than a murmur as he reclined with his eyes closed. "I suppose I should say you are good to each other."
"I love her," I said. "I loved her for years but…"
"But…?"
I looked over at him on the opposite side of the bed, his eyes still closed and one hand behind his head.
"After Christine, I was certain there would never be another opportunity for anything." I scrubbed my hand over my face. "Christine's rejection extinguished something within me that I doubted could ever be ignited again."
"How did you manage to find your spark, if you will?"
"I kept walking into Julia's kitchen and she continued to welcome me with tarts and cakes."
"Simple as that?"
"Oddly enough, yes. When Julia approached me the first time, I thought of every excuse imaginable to deny her invitation. But after the first few times being in her home, it became comfortable. I no longer thought of reasons to return straight home after my walks. Sitting in the parlor became such a part of my routine that sometimes I didn't even think to return home."
Lan adjusted the pillow behind his head. "You?" he said, turning to face me, a devious smile on his face. "Without a thought in your head?"
I snorted. "Yes, how surprising, me being thoughtless," I dryly replied.
His eyes were heavy and he inhaled deeply. "Perhaps one day I will learn to stop thinking," he said.
"I highly recommend it."
Lan closed his eyes again and mumbled something incoherently.
"Lan?" I whispered.
He mumbled again, his lips barely moving, and I sat upright once I was certain our conversation had come to a close. The moment the mattress jostled beneath the weight of my body, he inhaled sharply.
"What are you doing?" he muttered, his eyes slit open.
"I'll move the cart by the door," I said.
"Leave it," he said, his voice heavy with sleep.
"If you're tired–"
"I'm not tired. Merely resting my eyes," he grumbled. "I am perfectly capable of holding a conversation for a while longer, Kire. You needn't…trifle with the…cart."
His words ended with a yawn before he released a deep sigh and turned his head to the side. His damaged hand twitched, lips wordlessly moving, but he was otherwise still and very much asleep.
"You are like a toddler fighting sleep," I whispered.
I remained beside him for a moment, one leg dangling off the side of the bed. The sun was low in the sky, minutes away from dipping below the horizon, the interior of the suite bathed in rose gold. The air still smelled of cedar perfume and I imagined what it had been like when we were much younger, sharing a tiny room with two narrow beds pushed against the wall, the silver moonlight illuminating the space with a soft glow.
Smiling to myself, I watched the rise and fall of his chest, the softening of his features beneath the stubble of his facial hair. I imagined the light-hearted conversations between two young boys who should have been fast asleep, the giggles and whispers of brothers who in that moment of innocence, never would have imagined being separated for decades.
I wished I had heard him call my name nine years earlier at the Opera Populair, or that he would have made a left turn instead of a right and descended another two sets of stairs and found his way into my lakeside apartments. Perhaps he could have convinced me to walk away. Or perhaps I would have given him enough reasons to never pursue me again.
While Lan slept, I reached for the knit blanket at the foot of the bed and draped it over him, providing what little comfort I could give him. He stretched out when my hands brushed over his shoulders, turning onto his side where he hugged one of the pillows to his chest. His eyes opened briefly, he smiled at me, and once again settled into sleep.
"Are you staying?" he murmured.
I wasn't certain if he was speaking to me or if he was dreaming of a conversation, but in silence I sat on the edge of the bed and swung my legs over, returning to my place beside him.
"Kire?" he whispered in between deep breaths.
"Lan?"
"If you poke me between the eyes," he mumbled a half-hearted warning.
"Tempting, but I believe I can resist," I replied with a chuckle.
He snorted and said nothing more, and I sat on the opposite side of the bed keeping watch over my brother until the golden light of sunset turned to the pale glow of the moon.