"I've An Elegant Legacy Waiting For Thee...."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

And here we have the last batch of Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Yuletide/Winter Spice Holiday, served up on a silver platter and decorated with candy confetti shaped like trees and stockings and snowflakes.

To my wonderful, wonderful, wonderful mhari--Westmark fic, G. It's not exactly plotful, but it does have the potential to be so, and we hope that will suffice.

Stories

Sometimes, people write letters. They pull their paper to them across a smooth wooden table, or unfold it from deep pockets, or gather it at great cost from glass-windowed shops. They dip their pens in ink, or unwrap the bit of cloth around their charcoal sticks, or take a piece of coloured chalk that's been hidden in a drawer or coat for many long days. They write a name, or an endearment, or a greeting, at the top of the paper; they write a signature, another name, an affectionate parting word at the bottom. Between the name at the top of the paper and the name at the bottom, they write what many hold to be the most important part of the letter.

They write stories.

Short stories, long stories, brief or angry, trite or contrite, loving, loveless, worried, careless--there is no end to the stories they put down on their paper, wherever they got it, whatever they use to write with. They conjure up worlds. They invent the saddest fantasies, and the bitterest joys. They use letters to write the strangest stories in the world, even on cards that have no more than a line scrawled across the middle. If it is a letter, it is a story.

On the second day of summer, at twilight, a young man who looked very much like an old man was writing a story.

It began with a name, because most letters do. The name was seven letters long, and had been written badly because the young man--though, perhaps, it would be better to call him the old man from now on, as he was far older than younger--because the old man's hands shook a little. This was strange to him, because it had been many, many years since he had written a letter and noticed his hands shake as he was doing it. He was very good at writing letters these days, and had never had to consider keeping his composure. In the usual circumstances, he was a calm man, reasonable and self-controlled, with a mild expression. Now, though, as he wrote his story, he looked down at his hands as though he were amazed at their slight shaking, and tried to go back to his letter.

At this point, he put down his pen--he was writing with a pen, a fine one, that matched the inkwell he was dipping it into--and sighed softly.

Finally, he began his story.

It started with a question, which is different from the beginnings of many stories. It continued with four or five scratched out lines. Then, because he had realised he was making runs in the paper and the ink was splotching the tablecloth, he wrote very carefully,--

"I had heard that there was an accident."

He stopped, and stared at the sentence. At last, he shook his head.

"I had heard something of an uprising in Marianstat, and they said and that several people were killed. They told me of a man, two women, a boy--three more men elsewhere. I wondered if you would this was true."

Taking his story up in his hands, he crushed it and threw it away.

He murmured something softly which might have been a curse, and took another sheet of paper. He began again.

"How are you now? We're worried about you here--we heard that there was a brief uprising in Marianstat, and that men and women were killed. Is it true? Do you want us back? We're ready to come, I think. She has made bundles of half our clothes, that we might ride as soon as we got word, and every day we each undo a different one so that we have something to wear, and soon there won't be any bundles left, and she'll have to wash our things and start over again. I think she's by the window now, watching the post road. Is there trouble? Do you want us to come? We're ready to come."

The old man put down his pen for a moment.

"We're happy here, though. I haven't written in a very long time, but we have a farm of sorts. We have a vineyard, and and-- a daughter who is just eight, and dances in the garden in her smock; and a son, who is small enough that he would only come to your hip standing, and has eyes like yours. We call him Sahen. Our daughter is named Rina, because--I don't think I can tell you why. I hardly knew her; I only watched her and pitied her, and that's not a very good reason to take a woman's name, is it? But Rina suits her. She laughs all the time. Sahen loves her dearly."

He shook his head again, and continued writing, because it seemed to him he could hardly stop. He could hardly stop now.

"They're always together, and it makes me terribly glad. I think I understand--I'm pretentious enough to say I understand--why you had so many children, why you took so many of them and called them your children. You brought them all together and made them yours, just as Rina and Sahen are mine, together, when they dance or play. But we never played for you, did we? We just fought. Not with each other; I know that. But you taught us to fight, and we went into it as though we were glad, and we all got ourselves killed, one by one, almost in front of you. I regret it. All of us, except for me, and I left you behind when I went into exile to have a farm and a vineyard and my own children. I will never be able to tell if this will make you sorry or make you smile. I don't know if you'll be bitter. I never knew what you were thinking, and I hardly expect to know now that I've been away so long--ten years, already?--and understood so much about myself. It was strange, understanding. It happened very slowly. Every once in a while, I'd just realise something. I'd go out walking, and I'd know why I'd always felt a certain way about something; or I'd be looking after the grapes and suddenly see what I needed to do to fix a problem between her and me. Once I was reading to Rina and had to stop and just--stop, because I knew why I'd done something I did years ago. I knew myself, and it made sense to me, and I was too surprised to speak for a moment. Now that I understand so much about me, I don't know how I'll ever understand you, because I'll always be making comparisons, and we're not alike--are we?"

"No," he murmured to himself. "No, perhaps we are."

"I don't think I would regret seeing you again, though. I don't think it would throw my world over and confuse me or anything of that sort. It might... hurt afterwards, but only for a little while. I sometimes wonder if you look the same. I know I do not; she tells me so often. She says my hair is greyer, my face is tireder, and I can only hope it's because I am growing old contentedly, wearing myself out with good work--and I suppose that's not very likely. I am worrying. How are you? How is Marianstat? The people ruled themselves well, didn't they? That's what the merchants who pass through tell me. They tell me it is a prosperous city. They mutter and shake their heads and clearly think it is all capable of crashing down in a moment, but until now they never said anything like that with any certainty. Now--they spoke of an uprising. They spoke of killing. Why doesn't anything last? Rina and Sahen will never leave the farm, I tell myself sometimes. I will keep them here for-ever where they can't go out and meet murderers and fools and brave men and poor men and men like you and men like Justin. I will keep them away from cities where men and women are killed. I will keep them here where the biggest concern is whether or not we will get a harvest good enough to make wine with, or does anyone know when this barrel was put in the cellar to age, because somebody forgot to mark it? That's the sort of thing they'll think about. And they'll think about marrying other country children and raising more country children. They'll never want more; they'll never fight wars or try to kill themselves or go mad with grief and become faceless captains of armies who only want to taste blood. They'll never--they won't be me. Or you. They'll be beautiful, joyful, ignorant children who believe the best happiness is a day without rain. That's what I want for them. I know that truly, it's not, and they will never forgive me if I try to keep them here, and sooner or later they'll want to leave and they'll go off to cities like Marianstat--but I want to keep them. I'll try as long as I can, anyway. I'll--"

He scrawled over what he had started to write, and then scrawled over it again so that it was properly hidden under tears in the paper, and ink. Then, with another sigh, and a quick dip of the pen into the inkwell, he went on.

"I've strayed most embarrassingly. What I really want is an answer. Tell me--what is the truth about Marianstat? Is there truly an uprising? What is happening? And--do you want us back again? Because we are ready. She is standing by the window. Rina and Sahen will stay with neighbours; they aren't afraid. Tell us, please, where we're needed, and we'll do what we should at once."

Now he wrote the final part of the story, the name at the end, at the bottom of the page. He wrote 'gratefully' first, as a parting, and then he wrote his name, which was only four letters. He wrote it well, and clearly, so that anyone could read it, and, having done this, he blotted the paper and folded it neatly, sealed it off with hot wax from the candle, and wrote an address on the front--all stories are titled like this, with wax and addresses, which tell in handwriting and impressions from rings who is the author, who is the dedication to, who illustrated, what it is called. It is the cover of the story, and the old man made his well.

He stood, and blew out the candle. He walked through the rooms until he came to the top of the stairs, and at the bottom saw a room with one big window in the wall. By the window, a young woman who had the eyes of a very old woman was standing with her hands against the glass.

The old man came down the stairs and walked silently into the window-room; he put his hand on the old woman's shoulder, and she turned to him.

"You're finished?"

"I can meet the post coach at the end of the road if I hurry."

"I'll come, too." She left the window and got a shawl, wrapping it lightly around her shoulders, as the old man pulled on his coat and left the buttons in the front unfastened.

As they walked along the road, which was soft and muddy beneath their boots and growing little sprigs of bright green grass in the centre, the old woman said,--

"What did you write?"

"I asked him if the rumours were true. I asked whether or not he wanted us to come. I told him about how we were; I think I told him much more than was necessary, and I hope he doesn't get tired of it before he gets to the end. I told him about Rina and Sahen."

"Did you tell him why we called her that?"

"No--I couldn't remember."

"No, I thought... Because she had such beautiful fair hair, and such big hands. Because she laughs, remember?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, I told him that. Do you think it will please him?"

"He'll smile, that's all. I don't really know whether he'll be pleased. He was always hard to understand."

"I told him that."

"How you anticipate me! Do you think he'll ask us back?"

"I really don't know, to tell you the truth. Remember that you said we'd see Marianstat again."

"I did, but perhaps I was just saying it because you seemed so sorry. Are you sorry? You do love it here, don't you?"

"Yes, I do. They do."

"They do," the old woman agreed, nodding. "I won't be sorry if we go back. I want to see what's changed. I want to know if anyone is still alive. It's going to be like walking through ghosts, piled high and shaping themselves into buildings. But I'm not afraid." She tilted her chin up defiantly. "No, I want to go back."

"I think I do, too. I've just gotten used to the idea of having lost my country. I like being an exile. It seems a lot like growing old anyway."

"I don't believe I want to grow old."

"You have." The old man stopped and touched her cheek gently. "You have, you know."

"Oh, I know. Be quiet. We're almost there."

"If we go back, you can't pretend to be the same girl."

"No one said I would. I'll be old in Marianstat just as well as I'm old here. I won't dress up like a vagabond and go running through thieves' dens, and I won't give my friends nicknames, and I won't buy knives to take home to my children. What do you think I am? Do you think I've deceived myself? I know what I am. I know that things have changed."

"Yes, and so do I. I know that everyone is gone. I know that Las Bombas in somewhere in another country that we don't know the name of, getting out of horrible scrapes with the natives with his usual ingenuity, and lack thereof. I know that everyone I know died years ago, except you--and him. We don't know if he wants us back, yet. He might tell us to stay here."

"I won't."

"I know. You'll want to go. That's why I said--you can't pretend."

"I won't pretend."

"I hope not. It's going to hurt if you do."

She glanced at him tightly, but didn't say anything else about it. Suddenly she pointed. "There's the post coach. We're going to miss it. Can you still run, old man?"

He laughed. "I believe I can keep pace with you."

"All right, then. Ready? Go, then!"

They got to the coach a moment before it left, out of breath and laughing. Their old faces looked strange when they managed to speak breathlessly, and wiped away the sweat over their eyes, and handed the old man's story to the coachman. As they watched him twitch the whip and the wheels begin to roll and the big coach slowly, and then quicker and more quickly, glide into the distance, they looked at once another secretly.

"There it goes."

"We'll just have to wait, I suppose. We'll see."

"Right... Should I make tea when we get back?"

"It would be nice," said the old man, nearly wistfully.

"All right."

Without saying a word more, they turned and started home.

The old man's story travelled on.

It is curious, the number of stories a man can write in just one year. There are the congratulatory stories, the lauding stories, the stories about death and about achievement and shame and everyday life, about who gets married next week and who sells bread at the cheapest price. With so many stories written, it seems strange that anyone could have the inspiration to write them, to continue to pour out words when sure the fountain should have dried up or stopped working long days ago.

The reason it doesn't, the reason the little stories, with their titles, authors, dedications, illustrations, pages, fins at the end and once upon a times at the beginning, continue to be written, is quite simple.

People call them letters. They contain souls and minds and everlasting promises, but as long as they're letters, they remain trifles.

The old man's story, travelling away in the post coach, to a man in a faraway city, a man with weary eyes and pockmarks on his face, was just a trifle. As a trifle, the man in the faraway city received it. Upon opening it, though, he realised suddenly that he was holding a story. It was a strange story, but a story, a full and an important story.

Then he sat down at a little table, with light from a little lamp; he took a piece of paper and a stick of charcoal from his overcoat pocket; and he began to write his own story in return.

~~~

And lastly, but emphatically not leastly, the most challenging of these challenges, the fic de mage_brandebouc--Persian/Raoul, Phantom of the Opera, PG. The title is a very random pun.

The Admission

It is painful to be in love. Erik, the Opera Ghost, who lived beneath the Paris Opera secretly and loved Christine Daaé, the singer, showed this with words and with actions, by cruel tricks and by tears, and with all the anguish his quite mad soul could express, trapped as it was in a terrible, rotting body. Raoul de Chagny, the Vicomte who loved Christine also, showed it with oaths and concerns, by his own frustrations and angers, and proved it in the end by taking her away and protecting her, and hiding her from the world of which she had become frightened. They are still living far away, where she is afraid to leave the grounds of their house for fear of being recognised or having another mad person want her for his own. Phillipe de Chagny, the Comte, who loved La Sorelli, the dancer, showed it with quietude, by watching all her performances and hardly daring to speak to her, by his shyness, quite befitting an older man, and with his death, before he had learnt the courage to talk about love. Particularly, Christine knew it, because she bore it, she felt it, she suffered it, not only her own love, but the painful love of two other men, one whom she pitied and one whom she loved, who pulled her in this direction and that, like children fighting over a kitten. She knew that it is painful to be in love, because she saw the pain of those that loved her; and because she loved only one of them, but her poor heart wished it could have loved both.

But there was another man who knows this, about the pain of love. He, in his turn, suffered in the chases and tortures, the tricks and loves that went on around these people, especially the first three, Erik, Christine, and Raoul.

--Particularly the latter of these people, Raoul.

He is here putting down a secret account, things of which he made no mention when he detailed the events concerning the affair of the Phantom of the Opera and his protégé, Christine, and her lover. These things he has kept hidden for a long time, and never meant to allow anyone else to read, but he recognises that it is not long until he dies, and he wants, partly for his own peace of mind, to have it somewhere he can recall it. His memory goes, and he wishes to have something to refer to when he remembers important names and can't think of who they belong to.

Here he shall tell his secret.

He loved the Vicomte de Chagny, Raoul. He thought Raoul the most beautiful--and the saddest--young man he had ever laid eyes upon. He could not explain it, even to himself, for Raoul was no sadder than any other boy who thought he was foiled in love. His beauty was sulky, and he was easily angered and did not believe in magics. Nevertheless, when he wandered through the Paris Opera asking, "Where is Christine Daaé? Can anyone tell me where Christine Daaé is?" with his face sorrow-stricken and his eyes full of hopeless hope, looking a little lost and as though his heart were about to break if he could not find the object of his search, the other man was on the edge of a broken heart himself. Who could explain it? The poor young man, quite so lost, quite so unhappy, quite so in love, was the most breath-taking sight the man had ever seen. It seemed as though someone must draw a curtain across him to hide him from the world, like a crippled child whom no one wishes to see, whom everyone wishes to pretend does not exist.

So the man stepped forward from the shadows, and told Raoul, "Erik's secrets concern no one but himself!" What he told himself he wanted was to protect the boy from harm, to keep him away from the queer tortures and cruelties of Erik, who could kill like a child, hardly seeming to realise the pain he was inflicting and yet understanding it perfectly; but in truth, he knew that he wanted to keep Raoul from his Christine, from his sweetheart, with whom he would be perfectly happy for-ever and leave behind the Opera House and the man who watched him so constantly when he was there.

He bowed shortly to Raoul, and disappeared back into the shadows, as he could do so neatly. There he waited, until Raoul came rushing back down the corridor--then the man stepped forward again, and stopped him quietly.

"Where are you going so fast, M de Chagny?" he asked.

Raoul cried, "It's you! You, who know Erik's secrets, and do not wish me to speak of them! Who are you?"

"You know who I am," the man said in answer. "I am the Persian."

And this was true. He had no name that he would tell to anyone, not even Raoul; but he bent forward, dared to touch Raoul's hand with almost imperceptible slightness, and told him, 'I am the Persian'; and perhaps his jade eyes glowed, but Raoul knew that it was a suitable answer, a true name, and he stood silently waiting for whatever the strange small man who was entirely 'the Persian' might say next.

"I hope, M de Chagny, that you have not betrayed Erik's secret?"

Of course Raoul had, but the Persian was prepared to hear this. He was prepared to speak, to inform, to give assistance--thus, in short, a dialogue matching that which has already been set down and given to M Leroux for his book was exchanged between the two men. The Persian had softened in a way he had not expected at all, and though before he meant to hide Christine from her lover, he now realised that he could make Raoul truly happy by bringing him to Christine and helping him rescue her. He realised that it would not make him happy if Raoul were to be unhappy; and he also knew that Erik could not be allowed to carry out whatever madness had made him take Christine from the stage in the middle of the performance. He did not say any of this, of course, but continued his dialogue with Raoul. He told Raoul that he could take him to Christine.

At this Raoul cried, "How may I not believe you, when you are the only one who has believed me?" and he caught the Persian's cold hands in his own soft, young, warm ones, which made the Persian shudder to the very heart of him, because he loved Raoul and could hardly conceive of that young man touching him and believing him. At the same time, however, he realised that Raoul had mentioned the name--Erik!--and he knew well that it attracted that phantom in exactly the opposite way of a cat, who will disappear into the shadows invisibly upon hearing her name; Erik came when he was called, intentionally or not.

So the Persian hushed Raoul, promised again to help him, and then led him into the labyrinth. Raoul entered the secret maze of the Opera House, and every time the Persian heard his quiet breathing behind his ear, or felt his own hand brush against the soft fabric of the young man's dress clothes, and thought of the skin beneath them, the arms, the waist, the hips, he stopped and twitched, involuntarily, overwhelmed with guilt at his own imagination. It caused Raoul to question him often as to whether he was all right, but he always assured him that he was quite fine, and they must be more silent still, must give Erik no hint that they were coming.

When he led Raoul to Christine's dressing-room, and there told him to leave behind his tall hat, he was complimented by Raoul, and at this he smiled. It gave him a peculiar pleasure to know that Raoul thought well of him.

At that point, his servant Darius entered, left with them a pair of pistols which will be remembered from the account given to M Leroux, and vanished again; they were left alone and the Persian asked Raoul,--

"Do you love Christine?"

"I worship the ground upon which she walks!" cried Raoul. "But you do not love her, sir. Why are you willing to risk you life for her? Surely you must hate Erik!"

This first question the Persian could not answer. He simply said, "No, I do not hate him. I have forgiven him the harm he has done to me. I have forgiven him everything."

"This inexplicable pity," said Raoul sadly. "I do not see how you and Christine can share it. You speak of him as a monster, you condemn his crimes--how can you pity him, too?"

Once again, the Persian made no answer. Nevertheless, he thought of his reasons; of the poor, cruel, deformed man, who struck out at those around him so angrily, in his almost helpless condition; who was so hideous in his body and his mind, and yet pitiful because he could love; and because he could love, because he was someone who felt how fruitless, how painful, how strange it was to love someone without being loved in return. The difference between them, the Persian thought, was that he accepted that his love would spoil the story, and must be hidden because Christine and Raoul were intended, as part of the faerie tale of their love, to be together--but Erik could not seem to understand it, and believed his love was as much a part of the story as anyone else's. Perhaps it was.

The Persian's, however, was not, and he quietly occupied himself in understanding the secret of the mirror in Christine's dressing room, to distract his thought from his pity for Erik and his own self-important, self-righteous pity for himself.

Thenceforward, events transpired as they do in M Leroux's book, although one point that must be mentioned is that, when the Persian finally forced the mechanism in the mirror to yield to him and allow them to pass through it as Christine Daaé had, into the secret roads that belonged to Erik--just before they went through, he warned Raoul to be ready to fire. Then he clasped him very tightly close and they went through the mirror, all at attention and ready in a moment to fire their pistols; but the Persian could hardly keep his mind upon the task, upon the risk of their lives, upon the thought that they must remain alert and prepared to defend themselves, because he was quite overwhelmed and distracted by Raoul's back against his chest and Raoul's soft hair tickling his face. When they finally stood in the dark, silent corridor, breathing lightly, staring into the blackness, the Persian as soon as he had recovered his senses quickly released Raoul and sprang forward to light his lamp. He told himself over and over that such a thing must not happen again, not because of the shame to himself or the discomfort it might cause Raoul, but because he could not think correctly with Raoul so close to him. He would endanger both their lives by distracting himself so greatly and causing himself to be unable to think.

His resolution, however, was often broken in the next hour, as he led Raoul along; they were always touching by accident, or purposely, which was almost worse, because of the innocent ignorance with which Raoul seized his sleeve or placed a hand on his shoulder as he started forward--and once they went through a trapdoor, and Raoul dropped down and the Persian caught him, which was worst, because even in the dark the Persian could make out the slight expression of utter trust Raoul gave him as he was helped to stand. The discovery of Mauclair and the interference of M Milfroid, the door-shutters and the firemen, the cloaked shadow and the rat-catcher with his head of fire; all served to push the two men closer together in the darkness. Then, finally, they dropped into Erik's house. The Persian caught Raoul again, and put him away from himself with almost violent hurry, which Raoul was good enough not to remark upon. Surely it must have confused him, for at the same time, the Persian's hands seemed to remain on him longer than they ought.

This sort of thinking was quickly forgotten, however, because it was at this moment that Raoul and the Persian discovered the Punjab lasso lying on the floor of the place they were in, which the Persian had already recognised, not without horror, as the torture-chamber.

He will not relate again the dialogue that took place then, between the Persian and Raoul, between Raoul and Christine, between the Persian and Christine, between Christine and Erik. It has already been put down, and has no place in this narrative at any rate, because this part of the story is the confession, and it is intended only to fit into the events already told, not to tell them over again. He resumes again the story of his secret at the point when Erik announced to Christine,--

"Why, didn't you see that it was an African forest?"

--and he realised that it was, indeed, and grew hotter at every moment.

Thus began their torture. The Persian at least understood it and was prepared for it, but Raoul, who could soon not understand that it was all an illusion, strode around in it, wept because it never ended, removed his coat and put it back on, shouted, pounded, talked for long moments at a time about nothing, as the Persian felt around the mirror walls for a hinge, a clasp, an uneven line, anything!--that would allow them to escape. As he knelt on the floor, dressed only in his shirtsleeves and with his cap upon his head, behind him he heard Raoul shedding clothes, lying down, getting up, touching the walls and murmuring sad little things as he thought he saw Christine walking among the trees.

Raoul sat down beside him once and clutched at his arm, and the Persian looked away from his task, leaving his hands against the wall so he wouldn't lose his place.

"Well, M de Chagny," he said softly. "I am searching."

"What are you searching for?" asked Raoul imploringly, his eyes half-mad.

"The door, so that we may go."

"Do you suppose we will go?"

"Soon, yes. Soon I shall find the door, and we'll get out."

"You're a fool!" said Raoul, and he laughed and cried while smiling and shaking his head. "I'm so thirsty, and hot! and my strength is all gone. Oh, we shall die here! I am all prepared to die!"

"You are not ready to die, sir," said the Persian severely, hoping to recall him to his senses. "Will you leave Christine?"

"I think Christine is dead. I have seen her ghost."

"No, no, sir."

"Yes! In among the trees, dancing, laughing at me! She is already dead, and she is not thirsty or hot! She laughs because I still am, but she knows I will join her soon! In a moment, I will have her in my arms!" He grabbed both of the Persian's arms, pulling him away from the wall, and pressed himself upon the Persian wildly. "She knows, you see, and she is waiting! She dances more beautifully than she sings! She is waiting for me, and I am coming, you see, because I cannot live another moment! Oh, I am mad, I am dying!"

With his place already lost and the young man so close to him, the Persian gave in, in a manner he certainly should not have, and which he can now feel shame over; but at the time, between the heat and the horror and the fact that he was quickly growing as mad as Raoul, he could not even regret saying in a fierce whisper,--

"You are not dying! You are about to be saved!"

--and, when Raoul shook his head slowly, smiling foolishly and murmuring, "No, no, no, I am to die here, no...", the Persian suddenly kissed him, as forcefully as he could manage. Raoul did not protest; in all likelihood he was not entirely conscious of what was happening, or else too deranged to perceive that there was something wrong with it. Instead, he returned the Persian's kiss, and then let himself drop limply and rest his head in the Persian's lap.

"How long until morning?"

"It is not yet night," the Persian said, gritting his teeth and wiping the sweat from his forehead, trying to pretend that Raoul was sitting across the room.

"We are going to die, aren't we?" asked Raoul sombrely, in a sudden moment of clarity that surprised the Persian.

"No, of course not. I am just finding the door and the way out."

"I'm hot."

"Lie still here while I look, and take off your waistcoat."

"I already have," said Raoul. His voice sounded sad again, the wistful, faraway sadness of a child. "I have taken off nearly all my clothes, but I don't want anyone to find me dead and naked. It would be the last indignity, I think."

"Perhaps yes."

"Are you hot?"

"Yes," answered the Persian.

"The night is falling."

"Yes."

"But the moon is hotter than the sun."

"In the name of God," the Persian murmured, shaking Raoul gently, "do not speak. I am looking for the door. You must not speak. Only try perhaps to sleep, so that you do not see the mirrors or any of their illusions. 'He' will try to trick you, and you mustn't let him. Try perhaps to sleep."

"Too hot," said Raoul softly, but he closed his eyes. The Persian resumed his work, trying desperately to make certain that he hadn't missed a panel during the exchange and the--kiss. If he had missed anything, they might never get free, never realising that the door was hidden in a place he had already looked. The possibility filled him with horror, so that he began immediately in a frantic earnest, and went back four or five panels and began from there, all the time concentrating both on his search and on Raoul, who lay stretched out on the floor of the torture-chamber, his hair dishevelled, his clothes scattered, his face pillowed on his arm and one eye occasionally opening and flickering around to rest briefly on the Persian's hands. Every now and then he heaved a great sigh and closed his eye again.

This only made the Persian more determined to go on looking, and to find the door finally.

Raoul had been quite correct, and the moon was hotter than the sun. The forest suddenly gave way to a desert, and it seemed they must have journeyed or wandered at some time, to be in the sands now instead of the trees. The Persian heard lions in the shadows, and Raoul must have heard them too, for he twitched and covered his face, and turned over restlessly, and finally got up on his hands and knees and crept to the Persian's side.

"There are things out there," he whispered.

"No, they're make-believe," said the Persian, drawing him close and kissing his face tenderly, like a mother comforting her child, though he knew quite well that the kisses weren't meant that way. Raoul accepted them docilely. "Let me tell you about them. It's an instrument, made with skin and catgut, which he rubs to make creatures. There is also a leopard and a fly, but he's not making them. I don't know why. But, you see, there is nothing to fear. It's just a trick."

"A trick that will kill us," said Raoul flatly.

Then the Persian shouted for Erik, but Erik didn't answer, and the room grew hotter. They began to believe in the illusion there, though the Persian believed grudgingly, for he still retained a part of his mind that insisted it wasn't real. He insisted to himself that he mustn't believe, at the same time he referred in his mind to the desert, the forest, the oasis--

Oh, yes. Raoul was imagining an oasis, and the Persian allowed himself to be drawn into the make-believe fantasy. He was exhausted, and overcome, and he could see nothing else to do.

He roused himself, once, suddenly, saying, "No, no, you mustn't believe in it! It's a trick! If we go to the water, sir, and know that there is none, we shall certainly die!"

"Oh, may you and your tricks got to hell!" cried Raoul. "I cannot bear you! I am a great traveller, and I have been all over the world! I know every forest and every desert and every mountain, and I know that that is water, and I know it's waiting for me! It promises me that I shan't die just yet! It tells me that there is hope yet, and I know it! I will not sit here and let you tell me about tricks and kiss me and try to cast evil spells on me! I am going to drink!" With that, he rushed forward, crying for the water, and the Persian gave in as well, and stumbled after him.

But there was no water. They burnt themselves on the glass and fell back, and Raoul, who could not weep now, who was past weeping because suddenly he was an old man who knew he truly was about to die, seized one of the pistols from the floor and held it to his head; and the Persian clasped him once in his arms, prepared to have one last kiss before Raoul killed himself and he hanged himself (for the tree was waiting for him, waiting for him--it had reappeared at the edge of the forest). Raoul suddenly threw down his hands and kissed the Persian himself, without understanding at all why he did it, it seemed, for he tasted of bewilderment and unhappiness, and he clung as though he believed he were going to drown.

"We are about to die," he said finally, releasing the Persian and stepping back. "We are about to die."

"Yes," the Persian answered. "Yes, now, we are going to die..." And he turned his eyes towards the tree and the Punjab lasso waiting for him--and there he saw the door. "No!" he shouted, as he fell to his knees by it and opened it by touching the spring he had been looking for all along. "We are not going to die just yet, sir!" Raoul crept after him, as though he hardly believed it, but there it was...! The door! The door in the floor through which they felt cold air rising and saw the promise of escape...! They scrambled down the stone stairs, the Persian first and Raoul coming after, and at the very foot of the staircase, they stopped.

They stood in a cellar. A cool cellar, filled with barrels.

Raoul embraced the Persian, because now again he could weep, with joy, with relief, with frantic relief--but this embrace was nothing more than a thankful touch. There was none of the lost, wondering affection he had seemed to have in the torture-chamber, and the Persian thought that it must have been a dream of the heat. It must have been an illusion, too, like everything else that happened there. Raoul was a sane man again, and sane men did not love other men like anything more than brothers. The Persian, then, returned the embrace and sighed, once, a sigh that sounded of thankfulness and meant, in a strange way, regret. That was the end.

This, now, is the end of the confession which he has put down, of his love for the Vicomte de Chagny. There is, perhaps, one other thing he might say, and that is only this--

That when Erik came to him before his death, and wept because Christine Daaé had kissed him, and the Persian wept also, at the strangeness of the love, the consuming ache of being so close to something that one could almost touch it, and yet to lose it completely, the heartbreakingness of getting pity from someone whose respect one would die for--something in this caused the Persian to whisper, softly, as Erik stood at the door of his flat about to go into the night again, no longer weeping now,--

"How they are loved, both of them!"

--and Erik nodded, and the Persian thought fleetingly that he understood entirely, all of it; and then he was gone, in his cab, and there was no one left but the Persian, standing on the doorstep, standing on the doorstep even twenty years later. At last, after he had stood there and watched the road for years, he gently made up his mind.

He came back inside and sat down to write his confession.

Now he presents it to the reader quietly, without shame for his love but properly ashamed of its indiscretions. He, like all the others involved in the story, understands how painful love is. He can only hope that whosoever reads his confession will understand also, will perhaps feel empathy or perhaps sympathy; and he hopes that, in that place they are now, Raoul and Christine can be happy.

Of all those who had parts in the story, they are the ones who deserve it most.

Comments

[and-i.livejournal.com]

*left comments in rarelitslash*

I still adore it though.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

^_____^

I'm glad.