WAVERING CONVICTION
By Etienne

Restless. Unsettled. He moved around the third floor apartment like a panther in a cage. He needed to focus, to concentrate on the plan. Oh, he knew all its steps. The exact street she would enter on her shopping trip, how her handmaid would surround her, fluttering about like a damn protective dove. Striding to the window, he looked down on Rue du Renard for the twelfth time that morning. The fall weather offered the promise of a perfect day for skullduggery. Light overnight rain had fostered a fog lying thick and close to a warmer ground.

Good, he thought. An abundance of cover. He tensed. He was about to make contact with her again. After more than two years of utter silence on his part. He rubbed his temples, but no sense of conviction was forthcoming. Eddies of excitement kept welling upward…clouding his view. He would have to master himself before he stepped from this house.

Will she even acknowledge me? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Christine is a great lady now, a Countess, a woman of title and influence. And here am I, still an outcast, locked into hiding. The protective Louisa Giry housed in an apartment just one floor below.

He knew Meg was with her mother on the first floor, chatting in the area of the ballet studio. An occasional bit of laughter wafted up the back staircase. She’d brought her baby, Claude, for another visit. Such a beautiful angelic creature! Where are Christine’s children? He felt like a schoolboy, trying to muster courage. Knife? Yes. Punjab lasso? Yes. What am I doing? This isn’t a battle.

“No, but it could become one,” he spoke outloud. “One word of alarm from that pretty little throat of hers and you could have a gang of storekeepers ready to defend her honor.” He pictured a half-dozen pistols drawn, aimed at his heart.

Frustrated, he threw himself onto the cushioned sofa. Stretching out his long legs, he folded and unfolded his arms across his chest. If he waited much longer he’d lose the opportunity to position himself on the road leading from the de Chagny chateau into Paris. He’d miss her coach. He knew it didn’t matter; she’d end up on the same street…shopping. She was always there on the third Wednesday of the month. She and her handmaid, Justine, were such creatures of habit. He could set his watch by their predictability.

His eyes attended a tiny crack in the ceiling overhead. His lips vibrated as he blew out a breath. Ordering his mind into order, his eyelids closed. The gray kidskin mask on the upper right quadrant of his face went unfelt. Troubled thoughts flooded consciousness. No way to calculate the degree of discontent arising in consequence to a seclusion such as this. On the hand painted decorative table beside the couch rested an old battered pair of her ballet slippers. Without opening his eyes he fingered them. There is no way to tell how she will react. The comprehension shot a pain into his heart. No guarantees she will even acknowledge my presence.

What can I offer her? Nothing actually…defiant love. She will be shocked to see me, stunned. He knew she wouldn’t faint. She wasn’t the type. She’d stand her ground - perhaps ignore him. She’d never call the police. It wouldn’t matter if she did, his planned exit routes were up to the rooftops, he’d make his escape and visit her at the cemetery when she least expected it.

And how many times had he stood behind her in the street, almost touched her, walked behind her breathing in the very same air that had just entered her lungs? He knew which rooms at the chateau were hers, her habits, her latest choice of colors. Sadly he conceded that he was at war with his own will. Something deep and undeclared drove him to see her. Should he surrender to this constant fervent desire to touch her? He scolded himself for not being stronger.

Outloud he whispered, “She’s had two years with him and doesn’t look any happier; she actually looks ill!” On his feet in an instant, his fists clenched at the thought. “Ill?” He saw his hand cup her breast; even knowing she was another man’s bride. Could he reside so close to heaven and do nothing?

“All right. We’ll let her dictate the outcome. Yes! We will force ourselves to let her decide how the day should go. After all, a Phantom can be but a wisp of smoke, a non-corporeal misperception of an over-stimulated female. There one moment and gone the next.” He snapped his fingers.

In a mental storm, he rounded the small rooms of the third floor apartment another half dozen times. He waited, waited until he knew he was ready. Burning actually. Why is she growing so thin? Why no children with that pompous brat, Raoul? His rich cloak of gray velvet hung on the coat peg. He felt it, stroked it.

In his mind he ran his hand over her sleeping face, not to touch but to study. She weighed upon his heart like a heavy burden. The risk of declaring that he still lived would be worth it – even if she seemed angry at his appearance. He’d love to watch her stomp her foot, perturbed at a distraction from a shopping spree. He moved to the back door, donning the cloak. Two years Christine, two years. Today may well tell me all I wish to know about the truth of your relationship with Raoul. Is he the prince you dreamt of? He had nothing to loose and only the satisfaction that one true expression, that first initial look, would give him. Cloaked, he went silently down the back stairs, booted feet gliding over the red carpet. Meg and Louisa were in the ballet studio; he could hear their muffled discourse. His hand was on the knob, opening the side entrance to the studio. Framed by the backstairs and the doorway, he stood in silence. The two women turned, nodding agreeably toward him. Before their heads came back up and their eyes refocused, he was gone.

Through the gate leading into the alley the cloaked illusionist entered the fog, his fragile heart clinging to a desperate hope. Remembering an ancient Persian saying, learned in his youth, he forged ahead. I rued the day when I had no shoes until I met a man crawling in the street who had no feet! Forgive me, Louisa…I have to know, must know…does she still care?

READER COMMENTS

My Dearest Etienne.....you've brought it all back to your readers again. "The Return of the Phantom" is beginning again in my mind...and the words you write, sir, stir again inside my heart, my mind and my whole being the magnificent phantom we can not live without. The untouchable feelings of desire that the phantom brings to all who read your words, leave us always passionate for more. And you, Etienne, are the magnificaent keeper of the magic spell of our beautiful phantom's power over us. Never stop.

A dedicated phan (of both) ...J. McMahon