“Go ahead, Christine. I know there’s another question on the horizon.”
She shook her head slowly. “No, not a question. A realization. I now understand why you left me alone for so long on the day of the gala, and why you sounded the way you did. You’d just been shot and could have died. You were so hurt, and I was so angry with you and spoke so rudely to you—so harsh and even cruel. You must have been in such pain and yet you were there for me.
“You were always there for me. You’ve walked all over the opera house with your poor leg. You shopped and purchased all you gave me, all the time with that wound.” I tried to get a word in, but she kept going once the pieces started falling into place. “And then Perros. You were there in Perros with that leg—all the way to Perros. Oh! And then the cemetery and playing for my father, and then you were with Raoul. Oh! Erik, why did you put yourself through that?”
Without giving me a chance to answer she went on. “And the park. You were there with your poor, poor leg. You were walking all over Perros with it. Oh, Erik, why did you do that? Why did you put yourself at such a risk?”
“I told you I would walk through fire for you, Christine. A walk through Perros was nothing. I had to be there with you.”
“Oh, Erik, I’m so sorry. I was so selfish. If I’d only known . . .” She stopped and shook her head again. Then, as silence settled in, she searched my eyes and spoke softly. “If I’d only known a lot of things.”
Twenty-Nine
As we made our meal, Christine continued to talk about her new understanding of her Angel of Music. She also teased me about my unusual approach to cooking.
“Perhaps my many years of being a bachelor have made me lazy. That’s my only excuse for my lack of culinary skills. But I’m willing to learn. Would you like to switch places and be my tutor?”
“Certainly,” she eagerly began. “This is how you prepare asparagus.”
We laughed and we talked and, eventually, the table was set and we were eating stuffed chicken with garlic potatoes, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, and chocolate cake. As we ate, my thoughts started turning serious. We had only one more supper to share together and then she’d be gone, and I fought my natural tendency to become depressed.
So, instead of thinking, I watched her and soaked up her essence. I watched her eyes as she spoke, and I watched her hands as she moved them from her fork to her wine glass. She was mesmerizing—every bit of her.
Once we were finished with our meal, I wanted to encourage her to go to her room so she could see her new dress, but the paintings I had scattered on my dining room wall caught her attention. Some of them depicted places I’d been, and I explained that to her. While she studied them, I studied her. When she was satisfied, she glanced around the parlor and then looked up at me.
“Are these all the rooms to your home?”
Surprised by that question, I also looked around. “Why do you ask? Is my castle not large enough for you?”
“No, it’s not that at all. It’s perfect for an ordinary bachelor, but you’re not an ordinary bachelor. You’ve traveled far and, I’m sure, have seen wonderful sights, so you seem out of place here. Now, if there was more to your home that would allow you to expand your mind and . . . and do or . . . .” She sighed, “I’m not sure how to explain what I’m feeling. I sense there has to be more to this place than meets the eye. So I was wondering if there are other rooms that I haven’t seen; ones with hidden doors perhaps—ones I can’t see.”
I took a deep breath and looked down at her. “I have a wine cellar that’s below us, and there’s one other room that’s a security room of sorts. I’ve never used it or had a need to use it—thankfully.”
She cocked her head and frowned. “I’m confused. What do you mean—a security room? You mean it’s filled with weapons—weapons that you say you don’t use?”
“No, not at all like that. It is, I suppose, a weapon in itself.” She looked even more confused, so I tried again. “Remember, Christine, there are always those who want to do me harm. Well, that extra room is a precaution in the event that someone should discover I live down here. It’s a guarantee that no one will ever do me harm in my own home. No more scars while I’m in here.
“I guess you could say it’s like having locks on your doors. They would have to get through that room before they could get in here, and it’s nearly impossible to get out of that room without my help. Thankfully, though, no one has ever made it this far down to find me. No one except you, Christine. So I trust that, when you leave here, you’ll keep my secrets.”
“Yes, I will. Besides, from what I’ve learned about you, if I were to send anyone down here I would be sending them to their death.”
I closed my eyes and turned, taking a few steps away from her. “It makes me feel sick that you know these things about me. I hate the things I’ve done or have had to do. I don’t want a life like this any longer, a life where I’m always on guard, always looking over my shoulder, a life where I have to hide behind a moat, trap doors, mazes, and a secret chamber. This isn’t what I want. This isn’t who I am.”
I turned back to face her. “That’s why I need you so badly. With you by my side I would have the strength to leave this place and to walk in the sunlight and build another home with windows and many more rooms, and none of them would be a weapon.”
There was moisture forming in her eyes when she spoke. “I believe you really mean that.” I nodded and she shook her head. “That was much more information than what I expected. I really wasn’t trying to pry into your security. I only felt that a man like you might have a laboratory or work room where you experimented with things or built things, like your cold pantry or electric lights and stove.”
I rubbed my chin and thought, my guilty conscience is getting in the way of ordinary conversation. I suddenly felt a need to be more guarded. I looked at her and knew she was being honest with me right then, but what about in the future? I needed to be more careful. But I could explain that concern of hers easily.
“Since I do live here alone and have never had visitors until you, it doesn’t matter where I experiment or build. It doesn’t matter if I make a mess out of my drawing room with an experiment or two. And, as far as building, well nearly everything you see was built right where it sits.” I glanced around at all my furniture. “Yes, it all sits right where I built it.” Then in a more teasing tone, I added, “It saved my back that way—no need for moving furniture around.”
“You mean you built all your furniture?” I nodded. “Even the divan and chair?” I again nodded and she looked completely surprised. “What about the dining furniture?”
“Yes,” I said as I swept my arm around the dining room and parlor. “All but the paintings, tapestries, books, and a few trinkets, I’ve made.”
She looked around again. “What about that tall clock? You surely couldn’t have made that.”
“Au, contraire, my sweet. I once built 24 tall clocks that were much larger and much more complicated than that simple one. Those other ones . . .”
I stopped myself from telling her that those other ones were also weapons, but I think she was so astounded with her new understanding of the man in her midst that she didn’t catch my near blunder. Instead, she rushed toward the music room.
“What about your piano and organ?” Again I nodded, with an increasing smile at her excitement. Then she scrunched her nose. “And that casket? You also made it?”
“Yes, Christine.” I stood behind her and also looked into my music room. “Well, there are a few things in here that I didn’t make, like my violin, and that horse bust, and the paper, and uhh my clothes in the armoire, the feather pen, and . . .”
“All right. All right. I get the picture. But that’s still remarkable, Erik. I could understand you building your home, but . . .” She stopped, turned, and looked up at me. “Then the rumors are true about you also building this opera house?”
“Well, parts of it,” I admitte
d. “I didn’t build the entire structure myself, but I studied the plans and built enough of it to know it very well. It’s all up here,” I said as I tapped the side of my head. “I know it well enough to build another one exactly like it in another land—if I was asked to do so, and the same goes for the Palace in Persia.”
“You built a palace?” she asked as her eyes widened even more.
“Yes, I designed and built it for the shah, but I had 1,000 men working alongside me, so it wasn’t as if I hammered every nail.”
“You’re much too modest, Erik. Now I know you don’t belong down here like this. What a waste. Just think what you could do if you lived outside these walls.”
“Modest?” I chuckled. “I’ve never been accused of being modest before. I’ve been called many other things, but never modest.” Then, in sincerity, I reminded her. “Again, Christine, I’ve tried to live outside these walls, but it never ends well. You’ve seen my body—you’ve seen the results of my close contact with others, and I’ve told you my past and what can happen to others when they get too close to me and try to do me harm.
“At times, I feel like a volcano. After a violent eruption, a volcano produces new land mass that, in time, can turn a barren sea into a beautiful island. And even during their eruptions, especially at night, their powerful explosions are beautiful to watch and even captivating. But, if anyone dares to ignore warnings and get too close, they can lose their lives or at least be seriously harmed.
“That’s what I feel like. I have the potential to create beauty, but something always seems to go wrong and someone gets hurt—even me. I often hurt myself,” I said as I ran my fingers over the self administered scratches on my cheek and then patted my leg.
She took a few steps toward me. “And yet you feel you could succeed if I left here with you? How would that be any different?”
“Because I would have the right incentive beside me all the time,” I replied as I took her hand in mine. “I would have more reason to control my actions and responses when others tried to do me harm. And, with you, I could build a castle on a hilltop and not have to come in contact with others that often. With you, I could do anything.”
The compassion in her eyes and the softness of her hand in mine was moving me in a direction that I knew I couldn’t handle right then, so I tried to change the subject.
“On a lighter note, my dear, there’s something in your room that I didn’t make. Our own little elves left it for you today. You should take a look.”
She looked up at me with a smile and shake of her head, and I held out my arm, motioning toward her door. She headed in that direction while glancing over her shoulder at me, and I followed her, opening the door for her. When she spotted the dress, she took a deep breath and moved quickly to it. Then, grabbing it up in her arms, she turned quickly and almost ran to me. She looked as if she were going to give me a hug, and I was about ready to let her, but she stopped just short of it.
“Erik, this is so beautiful. I love it. Thank you . . . I mean, thank your elves for me.”
I was smiling broadly the entire time, but when she continued my word game, it made me chuckle.
“That dress was meant to be what you wore on your trip down here. I’d put it in your armoire for you, but . . .”
“Oh, you mean your elves also know how to get into my locked dressing room?” she questioned, while holding the dress against her and turning in circles.
“Apparently.”
She looked down at it again and added, “Seriously, Erik, you don’t need to keep giving me things. It’s terribly sweet of you to do this, but you’ve already given me so much.” Then after looking back up at me, she questioned. “You’re not, by any chance, trying to buy my affections, are you?”
I shook my head adamantly. “Absolutely not! That tactic would never work on you. You’re not shallow like so many other women. I would never try any tactic on you. You deserve to know the truth about me, so that’s all I’m doing—being honest. I love giving you gifts, so to not give you gifts would be tantamount to being dishonest. You don’t want that do you?”
She smiled at me and then hung the dress up in her armoire while thanking me again.
Oh, how I wanted to grab her and hold her close to me. Every moment I was with her was making it extremely hard on me to resist her. It was only the vision of her giving me my first kiss of her own free will that kept me in line, so I had to maintain strict control over my actions. Therefore, once more, to change the dangerous direction my thoughts were taking me, I offered to read to her.
“There’s something else I bought for you; well, since I haven’t read it yet, I actually bought it for both of us. It’s a book named Jacob. You haven’t read it, have you?”
“No, I haven’t, but it wouldn’t matter. I’d want you to read it to me anyway.”
So I started a fire while she put on the kettle for some tea and hot water for my compresses. I got comfortable on the divan with the book in hand, and she started with my treatment. The story began well, although it had an unexpected feature that wasn’t described in the forward, and it made me uncomfortable at first.
I wanted a book that wouldn’t remind either of us about any painful memories from our pasts, especially anything about a close father and child relationship. But, within the first few pages, we discovered Jacob had a ten-year-old son named Matthew, and a wife who had just died. To console himself with his grief, he left with Matthew and started their adventures.
I glanced at Christine a few times during those pages, considering that was what had happened to her. The only difference was that she was a six-year-old girl when her mother died and she and her father started traveling. But, according to her expression, it wasn’t bothering her, so I continued on, even though it did bother me, considering it was about a father and son.
The story kept both of us intrigued and in anticipation of what was going to happen next in the pair’s exploits. Their adventures covered territories from the North Pole to the South Pacific Islands. They traveled on dog sleds across frozen tundra, on horseback over Arabian sands, on sailing ships during turbulent storms, on a raft down the Amazon River, and on a train across Africa, to name a few.
The writer kept our attention as we waited to learn how they managed to escape being tracked by a hungry polar bear. Then we laughed along with a village of Eskimos when the father and son team built their first igloo and forgot about making a door. Next we were on the edge of our seats again when they hid in a cave on an island inhabited by headhunters. From there we laughed wholeheartedly as they bathed in a clear lake in South America where their clothes, and all they owned, were taken by a troop of monkeys.
Because of our laughter, I actually had to stop reading when, in their efforts to retrieve the only clothes they had, they entered a village that was swarming with Catholic missionary nuns. The writer painted a clear picture of their plight, which was funny to us, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have been funny had it really happened.
Along with the story, the author gave us interesting history and geography lessons along the way. One such time was about a historic lighthouse on the rocky coast of Maine in the United States. Jacob and Matthew fell in love with the peaceful area, its history, and the majestic waves crashing on the rocks. Consequently, Jacob purchased the lighthouse and they moved in and prepared to end their journeys.
All went well for the first week, but then a terrible storm hit that nearly sent them to the bottom of that dark sea. They soon realized why that quaint lighthouse had been put there to begin with. It was to warn sailors about the dangerous waters and not to invite them to the warm sunny beaches. As a result, Jacob took the first offer to sell the lighthouse, and they continued their journeys toward calmer waters.
I would look at Christine periodically over the top of the book to make sure she wasn’t getting bored, and, although I found her in different positions, she never looked bored. Sometimes she was curled in the corner of the divan,
or lying on her stomach with her hands under her chin, or sitting on the divan with her knees against her chest, or lying on her back with her head resting on a turquoise pillow. She was distracting to watch. I wanted so badly to be sitting beside her and holding her in my arms as I read to her.
There were times when she would get up, and, after telling me to not stop reading, she would walk past me and lightly brush her hand across my shoulder. Then she would continue on her way to the kitchen to fill up our teacups. We took breaks to eat a snack and discuss what we’d already read, but, other than that, we read for the rest of the day and evening.
The book did keep us both intrigued and amused from beginning to end. There were times, though, when I had to stop and pretend I needed a drink to clear my throat. Those times, my thoughts turned to my father and me and the times we spent together, and, as I looked at Christine, I believe she also was having the same feelings about her father.
We were nearing the end of the well-written book, and I think both Christine and I were having good feelings about our day of reading. But then, when we were down to the last three chapters, the scenario became uncomfortably familiar, and I looked at Christine often to see if she also saw it.
Matthew was forty-three by then and Jacob was sixty-seven. They disembarked from a ship that landed in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. They both fell in love with the beautiful terrain and the people, but Matthew also fell in love with a blonde girl named Mary who was twenty-three years younger than he was. There was stiff opposition from her family, since Matthew was not from the rich upper classes as she was. Plus, he was considered a drifter and much too old for her.
Then Matthew had to make a serious decision. Jacob wanted to leave on another sailing ship and head for India, and, although Matthew loved his father more than life itself, he was also in love with a beautiful girl for the first time in his life. They had such a connection. She was also adventurous and wanted to sail the world with him and his father. Mary’s parents finally agreed to let her marry Matthew, and Jacob agreed to stay in Port Elizabeth until after the large and expensive wedding being planned by Mary’s mother.
Through Phantom Eyes: Volume Five - Christine Page 41
