I felt so sick, especially since there were many who were injured and there was one death—the new box keeper. I sat on a crate for quite some time, stone-faced and looking at the gaping hole in the floor. I still couldn’t believe that I’d made such a gross error. I tried to rationalize that at least there was only one death when there could have been many, but it didn’t help. I believe I would have slipped back into a depressed state and used a fatal dose of morphine if it hadn’t been for Christine alone in my home. So, with her in mind, I headed back down. On the way, I stumbled across my walking stick, so, using it, I was soon in my lair.
It was almost seven a.m. when I sat down with some hot tea and wrote Christine a note, letting her know where I was and what I was doing. With my physical condition decreasing by the minute, I knew I had to keep my appointment with the doctor if I wanted to keep my promise to Christine about having all my appendages in good working order.
I knocked on her door softly, and, when I didn’t hear a reply, I cracked the door open and was instantly caressed with the scent of lavender. I then stepped in enough to lay the note on her dressing table. I was backing out of the room when the beam of light from the drawing room fell across her bed. The temptation was simply too great, so I moved beside her, looking down at her beautiful face and form. I touched my fingertips to her hair, but when she stirred I quickly left.
The sun was shining brightly that morning when I entered Doctor Leglise’s office, but, when he saw me, his reception wasn’t bright at all. I guess he could tell from my appearance that I hadn’t followed his instructions and rested, because he gave me that same look of disapproval without saying anything. He motioned for me to follow him into his examination room and again motioned for me to lie down on the cot.
“Take off your trousers,” were his only words, and then he left the room.
When he came back in, he had the tray with his instruments and that jar of creepy maggots. Then he stood beside me, still without a hello or any greeting. He felt my forehead and then proceeded to take the bandage off my leg. He sighed, long and slow, gave me a sideways glance, and then, taking the tweezers in his fingers, he began removing my dead workers.
I finally spoke up, sarcastically. “Well, good morning to you too.”
He only gave me that same sideways glance, and then his eyes returned to the work at hand. I folded my fingers behind my neck and closed my eyes, thinking he must have had a fight with his wife or something, and I wasn’t up to dealing with it, so I stayed quiet.
Then, after a few minutes of silence, he asked, “Erik, what do you do for a living?”
My eyes sprung open. “What?”
“You heard me. What do you do for a living?”
Naturally, I couldn’t tell him the truth, so I asked, “Why, are my workers complaining?”
“No. Actually, they’re quite peaceful. They’re all dead. Now, tell me, what kind of work do you do? Your fingernails aren’t dirty and they look recently manicured, so I don’t think you do manual labor or work out of doors. I see traces of ink on your fingers. Do you sit at a desk all day? Are you a designer or perhaps a writer?”
Searching his face while trying to understand why he wanted to know, I responded, “You could say that. Why?”
Without looking at me, he asked, “Think of something you worked hard on or created, and then picture someone destroying that design without giving any consideration for the hard work you’d put into it. How would that make you feel, Erik?”
Again, he gave me that sideways glance. Then, without giving me a chance to answer, he went on. “Each time you come here, I can tell you’re destroying my work. I’ve repeatedly told you the importance of getting rest and staying off this leg, but, for some reason, you’re refusing to take my advice. I realize the importance of this other person in your life, but if you don’t listen to me, you’ll not have a life to share with this person. Your leg looks much worse than it did when you first came to me. Sit up, Erik, and look at your leg.”
I just looked at him. Then sternly he repeated, “Look at it.”
I lifted my head and shoulders and looked down.
“Do you see this?” he said as he pointed to a long red streak going from my wound to my hip. “Now look at the wound itself. It’s growing. That streak is getting longer and telling me that the infection is moving through your body and will soon reach your heart or brain. When that happens . . .” He shook his head.
“There’s only so much I can do. You have to follow my instructions or you’ll be dead within the week, Erik. And I guarantee you—that’s no idle threat. You need to stay here and let me take care of you. This leg needs hot compresses with medicated water several times a day, and it needs to be immobile.”
I thought about Christine locked in my home with no way out, and said softly, “I can’t stay here.”
He stopped what he was doing and stared down into the wound, with his hands and instruments poised over my thigh.
“What do you expect me to do, Erik? Create a miracle?” He sighed and closed his eyes. “If you won’t stay here, let me come to you. Tell me where you live, and I’ll come to you every day and treat you there.”
I lay back down and searched for the right words. “That’s impossible. It’s far away, through a winding territory, and across a lake. Even if I gave you directions, you wouldn’t find it. Nobody can.”
He went back to his work, but continued with his reasoning. “If your home is that difficult to reach, that’s all the more reason for you to stay here.”
I shook my head. “I left the one I love there, and she won’t be able to find her way out. She could starve.”
“She’s in your home? Well then, let her take care of you,” he replied, thinking he had the solution to his unique problem.
Knowing that was also impossible, I shook my head.
“Erik! Why are you being so difficult?” He huffed, slammed his instruments down on the tray, and walked across the room with his back to me. “Listen to me,” he said sternly and then turned to face me. “If she loves you, then she’ll be glad to help you. You have to stay off this leg and treat it properly.”
Trying to work with him and be as honest as I could, I replied, “Look, Doctor Leglise, I truly appreciate everything you’re doing and your advice. I don’t want to die and I don’t want to lose my leg. I finally have someone in my life, and I want to be the best I can for her. I have to admit that the last few days or weeks have been strenuous on me physically, but the days ahead won’t be, and I’ll be able to rest.”
“Why is it I don’t believe you, Erik?” he asked while walking back toward me.
I looked straight in his eyes and my tone was serious. “Perhaps because I haven’t been the ideal patient up until now. As I said, I don’t want to die; in fact, I want to live now more than at any other time in my life, so work with me on this. Other than a few errands on my way home, I can . . .”
“Oh, Erik!” he shouted as he slammed his fist down on the mattress. “See, you’re already doing it. You aren’t even out of my office and you’re already planning not to listen to me.”
“This is the last of it, I promise,” I tried to reassure him.
“And you expect me to believe any of your promises, Erik—after your track record?”
I pushed my head back against the pillow. “I know I must sound crazy to you and full of contradictions, but I do promise. I only have three stops on my way home, and then I won’t do anything else, except come back here to see you.”
He looked in my eyes and then at my leg. Then, with his hands behind his back, he backed away and leaned against the wall. He sighed deeply while focusing intently on my wound. Obviously, he was thinking over something, so I remained quiet and waited for him. After a few more sighs, he covered me with a sheet and left the room.
When he returned, he had two books in his hands. He then sat in a chair and began thumbing through them. Periodically, he made a notation on a piece of paper, and then he contin
ued his reading. I used the time to close my eyes, while telling myself that I had to trust him and his judgment. I didn’t want to lose my life, especially now that I had a chance to live it with Christine.
The room was quiet and my thoughts turned to the shattered chandelier and those injured. I spent the next half hour, unsuccessfully, trying to remove those visions. Finally, he laid the books down and left the room again, with the piece of paper in his hand. When he came back in, he pulled the chair up beside me, sat down, and laid his hand on my arm.
“I presume the more we’re challenged the better we become, right, Erik? Well, I have to admit you’re the biggest challenge of my career, not necessarily your wound but you. I don’t want you to come back for at least four days. Especially now that I know how hard it is for you to get here. You’re to stay at home and down until then.
“I’m sending you home with all you’ll need to take care of your leg. I’ll also send instructions for your lady friend on how to take care of you. I’m trying some new procedures on you, although to those in China they’re very old. I’ll also send a good supply of maggots in their different stages for you or your friend to use, but they’ll only be productive for four days, then you have to come back here and let me see how they’ve done. Anytime during those days, if you feel worse or the wound looks worse, then please, Erik, please come to me right away.
“I’ll now finish cleaning out the area, and I want you to sit up so you can see what I’m doing and how to recognize the dead maggots from the live ones. Are you willing to work with me on this or do I throw my hands in the air and forewarn the undertaker?”
“You can count on me to follow your instructions,” I honestly replied.
However, I didn’t intend to involve Christine in what I was to do, but I couldn’t tell him that. It wouldn’t bode well to tell him that she didn’t love me or that she was my prisoner in what some would call a dungeon. No, that wouldn’t do at all. Perhaps Christine was right; perhaps I was demented. What else would explain my keeping a beautiful and precious woman locked in the basement of the opera house?
He sent his secretary out to buy the supplies he needed while he went to work again on my wound. It was almost ten a.m. before he let me leave, but not before he gave me one last piece of advice.
“You have to follow these instructions precisely. Unless you do all that’s written here, it’ll be tantamount to putting a fresh coat of paint on a barn with one hand and then throwing a lighted match on the hay inside that barn with the other hand. All this,” he said emphatically, while shaking his instruction in front of my face, “will be for naught. You’ll die, and then what will happen to that woman waiting for you?”
He was right. I had to do it his way for Christine. So I moved quickly to finish some necessary errands and then get back home to her before she woke without me there. After telling the driver that I was in a hurry, he moved us through the streets as quickly as safety would allow.
Once in the dress shop, I picked out three dresses for Christine—a simple blue, a not so simple forest green, and a deep purple, velvet evening gown with a matching cloak. While I rested in a comfortable stuffed chair, the clerk found all the undergarments she would need.
Once finished with that shop, I picked up a fresh bouquet of flowers and then went to my favorite restaurant. I told the proprietor what I wanted, and he happily supplied my needs, especially once he saw the amount of cash I had on me. I took a few items with me, like little shrimps, chicken wings, and bread. Everything else I had him deliver to the back door of the opera house at two p.m. every day for the next week.
One more stop and then I could go home to Christine. I had the driver go to the area where I’d found my young helpers. We had to circle around the area before I found them two blocks away in a field, throwing rocks at tin cans on a fence. They came running when I called them.
“I have another job for you, if you want it.”
“Sure,” was their eager response.
“A package will be delivered to the back door of the opera house every day at two p.m., and I need it taken down to the lake. Here’s a note from the opera management. It will gain you access to the building, and you know where to go from there.”
With that finished, my plans were set so I went home.
After I dropped the food off in my dining room, my arms were still loaded down with packages, large and small. I went to Christine’s door and tapped three times, and, when I didn’t get a response, I opened the door slowly. I was startled when I saw her standing on the other side of the room, but, rather than saying anything about it, I laid all the packages on her bed.
“These are for you. I hope you like them. Once you’re dressed, food will be waiting in the dining room.”
She didn’t respond, so I simply nodded and backed out of her room, trying not to be too distracted by the vision of her in that blue dressing gown. That wasn’t the response I was expecting from her; it wasn’t nearly as cordial as when I’d said goodnight to her, but I tried not to read too much into it.
While I waited for her, I set the table with my best dishes and glasses and the new bouquet. Then I arranged the prawns and chicken wings on a platter and brought out a bottle of Tokay that I’d brought back from the cellars of Konigsberg. I’d been saving it for a special occasion, and nothing could possibly be more special than that day. I also put the English sweets in a bowl on the table. Once finished with the table, I built a fire, thinking that after we ate we could sit by it and talk.
When she finally came out, she was wearing the simple blue dress, and she took my breath away. Without the ability to think or talk, I could only smile and motion toward the dining room. I held the chair for her and then sat down across from her.
“This all looks so nice,” she remarked politely. “You shouldn’t have gone to this much trouble. Cheese and bread would have sufficed, but thank you anyway.”
I still couldn’t find my once eloquent words, so I merely nodded. She began eating, but I wasn’t capable of eating anything. I don’t think I’d eaten anything in the last two days, but my nerves weren’t in the best condition, and the thought of putting anything down my throat was repulsive.
I was feeling bad in every way possible, and it angered me. Here I finally had the chance to be with Christine and eat our first meal together and carry on polite conversation, but all I could see or hear was the chandelier crashing to the floor and people screaming. I tried to erase those visions and focus on the soft beauty before me, but they kept weaving in and out of my thoughts.
While Christine was doing a good job of keeping the conversation light, I knew she had to be thinking about that disaster also. She’d been distraught the night before in her dressing room, so she couldn’t have forgotten about it that easily. I feared her bringing up the subject and asking if anyone was killed. I didn’t want to tell her that someone had been killed. I wanted the days ahead to be spent with her getting to know who I really was, but then maybe what had happened and any conversation about it was proof of exactly who I was.
Eventually, she began asking me questions, so I was forced to start communicating with her.
“Erik isn’t a French name. What’s your native country?”
That question caught me off guard, but did help to take my mind off the chandelier.
“I have no country. I picked that name out of a hat, you might say.”
“And what type of a last name did you pick?” she asked after she took a sip of her Tokay.
Taking a breath and leaning back in my chair, I had to think seriously about my answer. I hadn’t told anyone my last name except for the planning committee, and I really didn’t want anyone to know it. It was almost sacred to me, since, to me, it represented my father. But I had to tell her something, so I used my old trick of hiding the answer among a confusion of words.
“I have no need for a last name. A last name establishes genealogy or a legacy, and since I have neither, and quite possibly ne
ver will have, there’s no need for one. The only other reason for a last name is to distinguish you from others who have the same first name. I don’t believe I need that either. Once someone meets this Erik, that one name alone is all they need to distinguish me from any others who might also carry that name. Hence, I need no last name. I’m simply Erik.”
While explaining that to her, I’d leaned forward in my chair and laid my hand on top of hers. When I finished my explanation, she discreetly pulled her hand back, and I apologized.
“I’m sorry, Christine. I didn’t mean to be so forward. It’s just that I’ve waited so long to have you sit across the table from me that I must have forgotten my manners. I want to stay within the bounds of propriety; however, I presume just bringing you down here has indubitably crossed those boundaries already. I’ll try harder not to touch you in any way, but I can’t promise that I won’t express my love for you on a regular basis, if not by words, then at least through the windows to my heart.”
As she patted her lips with her napkin, she gazed at me in silence. I gazed back, so thankful to have her across the table from me at last. Her gaze left me and traveled around my home. From where we were sitting, she could see into every room, so she asked her next question.
“This is all you have—these five rooms?”
I also looked around and nodded, since I couldn’t tell her about my mirror chamber, for how could I explain a room filled with mirrors and a lone tree. I couldn’t, so my response was simple.
“My needs are few, music, books, and now you. That’s all I need.”
“You don’t need to sleep? I don’t see another bed in here. I’m not taking your bed, am I?”
“Oh, no, no, no.” I replied while looking down at my hand, tracing a design on the table top with my fork handle. “I have a bed in my music room. That’s where I sleep.”
“Hmm, I didn’t see a bed in there,” she mused.
“I keep it covered with a tapestry,” I tried to explain with a cleverly woven lie. “That’s why you didn’t recognize it.”
Through Phantom Eyes: Volume Five - Christine Page 32
