Page 14 of Angel's Kiss
“I was just wondering,” she muttered, looking back to him. There was something so breathtaking about the clarity of her eyes. “Are you Roma?”
“Ah,” Erik sighed with a smile. She had not used the vulgar and offensive word ‘gypsy.’ She had saidRomain a way that confirmed his theories perfectly. “Again, I must disappoint you. I am not one of your people.”
Christine gaped at him, blinking. “How did you know?”
“I suspected when you smiled at the Romani songs I played for you, but I became sure when you told me your father would play you—”
“The Resurrection of Lazarus,”Christine finished for him. He could still see the way her face had lit up when the Angel of Music had played for her from behind her dressing room mirror.
“Only someone trusted by The People would have had the honor of learning that piece,” Erik confirmed. “From what you’ve told me of your father – a wanderer and musician – I guessed.”
“Only on his mother’s side,” Christine blurted out. Erik cocked his head. That was irregular. Christine scowled. “It is, as you might say, a long, sad story.”
“Perhaps you will tell me one day.”
“Perhaps,” Christine replied, considering him. “If you aren’t of The People, how did you learn it?”
“I traveled with them for many years, on and off, moving between different caravans.” Erik watched the interest rekindle in her eyes. “As you can guess, my life has never been easy or happy, but my time with the Roma was better than much that had come before. I learned a great deal from them, and they were always more welcoming to me than the rest of society.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“As welcoming as a people without a country could be of another outcast, I still was never more than a visitor. I was—”
“Among them, but not part of them,” Christine finished, and Erik nodded. “That’s familiar.” There was bitterness in her voice and expression as she turned her attention back to the clock.
“They taught me how to work metal, tinker, and more,” Erik went on. “I wouldn’t have been able to build this without learning from them. I modeled this clock on a much larger one in Prague that I saw soon after I first joined a caravan,” he elaborated and she smiled as she raised a hand to touch the fine gold molding.
“Have you eaten?” Christine asked and shook her head before Erik could reply. “Of course you haven’t. Get something for yourself too then. And make some of your tea for me as well while you tell me more of the secrets to haunting an opera.”
“There issomehard work involved,” he said as he searched out the makings of tea.
“Ah yes, frightening ballet rats must be exhausting.”
“And skeptical novice seamstresses,” he corrected. “I do have other duties, you know. I give the managers quite a lot of notes, not that they listen. But I earn my salary.”
“Yoursalary?” Erik turned to see the delightful look of consternation on her face. “That story is true too?”
“Like I said, all the stories about me come from somewhere.” He liked the way she stared at him now, in amazement and not fear. “I’ve required a few...financial tributes from the management over the years when they’ve needed to be taught a lesson. Nothing too extravagant, of course; only what their peace was worth.”
“Jammes claims they pay you ten thousand francs a month!” Christine squawked.
“Well of coursethatisn’t true.” Erik waited for Christine’s sigh of relief. “I got twenty thousand once.”
He could not help but laugh at the look of pure shock on her beautiful face. “They pay twenty thousandfrancs to aghost?!” Christine sputtered. “Fucking hell, that’s more money than I’ve seen in my entire life!”
Erik shrugged. “It was only one time; after a disastrous premiere ofLa Juviethat I sabotaged on behalf of anyone who cares for good art.”
“What in God’s name do you do with money like that?”
“I don’t keep it all,” Erik protested, raising his hands in mock defense. “I put some of it back and watch them try to fix the books; some I save. And of course, some I spend. Paris is an expensive place to live in comfort.”
“I would ask how they can still believe you’re a ghost, but I am aware of how convincing you can be,” Christine muttered. Erik could swear she looked embarrassed.
“People believe what they need to,” Erik tried to console her, but it didn’t seem to help. “I don’t know about our new managers yet. They haven’t paid me a cent and have not listened to my orders.”
“I don’t know if I respect them or resent them for that.” She looked down, picking at her nails and frowning. “I wonder if they have decided what to do with me.”
“That’s not their decision,” Erik reassured her, or tried to. He worried it sounded more like a threat, since it was.
