Chapter Text
As a rule of thumb, Philippe kept his flat empty. He hired a woman to clean it every Saturday, but he never bothered to stock it with more than water and tea. There was little decor and fewer indication that a man lived in it-- it looked nearly the same as it had when he first bought it. That was just as well, for Philippe never intended to use it as anything more than a glorified hotel room.
He used it to entertain friends from the Opera and as a space for his less respectable ventures. His lovers would come and go, and by the next week, all traces of what had transpired would be erased.
But now the smell of fresh tea- sometimes coffee- permeated the air. Almost always, two mugs would sit on the tiny table, sometimes accompanied by yesterday’s paper or a half-eaten apple. Philippe had taken to storing some frocks and suits in the wardrobe, next to the Persian’s coats and shirts. Strands of black hair- sometimes grey- and golden locks fell on the pillowcases they shared.
And for once, he found an extra toothbrush in the washroom, next to the new clipper and comb. The flat was as much his as it was the Persian’s now, and Philippe did not mind at all.
This was a world they had built, a little space hidden from the world where they were free to simply be, and Philippe adored it with all his heart. Had he the power, he would have kept it this way forever more.
And then their world crumbled bit by bit.
Poligny took Box Five for himself, perhaps as a challenge to the ghost. Philippe did not care either way, but he was mildly amused by the manager’s suffering, no doubt a result of a guilty conscience. One box over, Philippe sat, Decaen and his wife, Margot beside him. They chatted about idle things before the curtain rose, and frequently Decaen would sneak a glance past their balcony at poor Poligny in his seat.
Then the boxkeeper’s shrill voice cried, “You can’t go in there! It’s not your seat!”
Philippe started as the door to their box slammed open. And the man rushing in was none other than the Persian. Decaen hopped to his feet, immediately holding his wife behind.
“Stay back!” he shouted.
But the Pesian ignored him, and before Philippe could reach him, raced to the balcony’s edge. Only then did Philippe notice his hat hung askew, the damp smell of water clinging to his wet clothes. And his eyes were crazed, vibrant with anger as he looked to Poligny.
“Idiot!” the Persian hissed.
Then, to Philippe’s horror, he began climbing out the balcony, apparently trying to make his way to Box Five. The count lunged, yanking at the man’s sleeve until they both fell back to the ground. In his grip, the Persian said, “Philippe! Let go- I must get to M. Poligny!”
“Tell me what you’re doing first! What kind of lunacy is this!?”
“Now! There’s no time!”
“What-”
They broke apart when Poligny screamed. Above, Philippe saw the man cowering before a silhouette. He might have caught a glimpse of the spectre’s ashen face before it disappeared into the shadows. Poligny stumbled out of his box, no doubt a victim of a poor prank.
He heard the whispers next. Philippe peeked over the balcony and blanched. His fellow opera-goers were not looking at poor Poligny. They were looking at Count de Chagny and the mad Persian. And as Philippe felt his shame burn, the Persian ran out, dashing after Poligny or perhaps the so-called spectre. Philippe did not care. All he knew was that those men and women below had seen the Persian in his box and witnessed that burst of unexplained madness.
“He called you ‘Philippe,’” Margot said, “why did you let him?”
In truth, Philippe had done his best to hide the Persian from the others. He did not want to admit it but as the shame continued to run through his heart, he knew- he’d known it from the start. He did not wish the world to see him and the Persian together. For once, he felt ashamed for that worn coat, for that odd hat, for the man’s clipped accent and the fact that he was always so out of place. Had it been another man- perhaps Pierre, Vincent, Ferdinand, Etienne- would he have felt the same? Philippe did not know, and the shame ate at him twofold.
Perhaps he had been ashamed from the start and thought himself too high and mighty to care.
“I don’t know,” Philippe told her.
They spent less time together after that, it seemed. The Persian occupied himself with scrambling through the theatre like a diseased man, poking his nose behind curtains and rafters as if searching for rats. For his part, Philippe avoided him at the Opera when he could. But all remained well in their joint flat. And there was no loss of pleasure in the taste of the Persian’s lips or the warmth of his hands upon Philippe’s skin.
When he was not having his episodes of frenzy, the Persian was perfectly amiable and calm. But when Philippe asked what was the matter, he’d simply told the count not to concern himself. Philippe had pretended to take offense, but the truth was that had been exactly what he wanted to hear-- he wished nothing to do with the Persian’s affairs. More often than not, it was the Persian who greeted him at the Opera rather than the other way around. If he could help it, Philippe looked the other way when he saw the man approach, and he much preferred to return to the flat alone rather than share a brougham with him.
“The girls say you’ve been tainted with the ‘evil eye’- what nonsense,” Sorelli once told the count, thinking such talk no more than a funny joke.
But he’d demanded to know more and she said, “Renou says you’ve become friendly with the Persian and he’s somehow placed an oriental curse upon you.”
“Those nitwits!” he hissed, “grown men believing this drivel!”
Philippe dismissed it as stupidity as soon as it came. Even so, he asked the Persian what the evil eye entailed and the man had said, “Your friends have no need to fear. I have no idea what they think it is. The evil eye is the gaze of a man who envies others so much he wishes to do them harm.”
As an added quip, the Persian said, “And I have no reason to envy anyone here.”
And even so, the stagehands confirmed that Count de Chagny was influenced by the evil eye when he nearly throttled the Renou boy backstage, livid at the misinformation surrounding his name.
“Are you avoiding me, Philippe?” the Persian asked one afternoon, having caught the count lurking by Sorelli’s dressing room.
“I think you are the one avoiding me, my friend. All this business of yours- it’s taken its toll on our… arrangement.”
“I see.” Awkwardly, the Persian looked down, as if it took all the strength he had to pull down his pride. “Perhaps I was too obsessed with my… pursuits as of late. I’ve neglected you. I’m sorry.”
Philippe wrapped an arm around the Persian’s shoulder. He grinned. “All is forgiven.”
But the lingering guilt still burned at the back of Philippe’s head. The Persian- it seemed- had yet to figure out that the source of Philippe’s discontent was not his attention span, but rather his eccentricities. Everything about him that Philippe once loved now filled him with a dull irritation- perhaps a dissatisfaction that was always there- the coarseness of his beard, the intonation of his French, the smell of lamb and spice baked into his trenchcoat, the fact that he was strange and foreign and unliked. It twisted at Philippe and made him wish that the Persian was someone else. But he still did not want to let go, because these wicked thoughts made him want to love the Persian all the more.
As they entered the foyer, Philippe found several workers clearing a path, glancing upon them both as if they’d contracted disease.
As an apology to Decaen and his wife, Philippe arranged for the Persian to join them for a luncheon at the estate. And this was in no small part because of the guilt that nabbed at him when it came to his beloved friend. Perhaps if his friends could see the man that Philippe loved for who he was, they would understand why the count favored him so. And they would see that the Persian was a perfectly respectable gentleman, charmingly strange and not the least bit mad.
What Philippe had not expected was Decaen taking the liberty to invite Grignard and his sister Eloise, a woman he admitted to having fancied in their youths.
“I hadn’t expected this many guests,” he told Decaen- point blank- in the parlor.
“Were you always so serious?” Grignard jabbed, though Philippe was sure the man knew perfectly well that Count de Chagny had always been this severe.
“But it’s been so long since we’ve had a proper get-together,” Decaen said, “and the more the merrier, isn’t it?”
The others agreed, and met with their pleasant faces, Philippe could not help but relent. It had indeed been some time since he’d been able to sit and laugh with his friends. It had been this same group that helped him through the grief of his parents’ death and the very same that looked on his siblings as their own. These were not lovers nor strangers-- these were his friends, companions he’d sorely missed as the years and fancies pushed them apart.
Before the Persian’s arrival, the maids brought in tea and light h’orderves, enough refreshment to last through the afternoon. Then Grignard had requested wine, a teasing glint in his eyes, and they’d all laughed. They spoke of happier times and schoolboy pranks- who could forget Grignard gluing Father Michel’s buttocks to his chair?- and Decaen’s drunken speech at Marie de Chagny’s wedding. Margot was happy to speak of their daughter’s impending marriage, and Eloise got into a row with her about wasting the poor girl’s talents. Grignard took his sister’s stance, and as they exchanged friendly banter, Philippe found himself dousing wine and thinking, “Ah, what times I’ve missed!”
In the end, he was inclined to agree with Eloise, for there was no harm in indulging the child’s paintings, but once married, she should be ready to put husband and child first.
“So you really haven’t agreed at all!” Decaen said, “Philippe, you rake!”
“Perhaps we need another tie-breaker then,” he quipped back.
“Do you think your Persian friend will have something to say?” Eloise said.
Grignard swallowed a macaroon. “He’ll agree with Decaen no doubt. They treat women quite terribly in the orient, I think.”
“Yes. I couldn’t imagine having to live there,” Margot added, “I wouldn’t be able to stand the smell of opium in the air.”
“I wouldn’t mind a glimpse of the generous women though.” Grignard grinned as Eloise smacked him in the arm.
And finding himself rather defensive of the Persian’s homeland, Philippe said, “Those are only rumors. We’ve nothing to go by but words on paper. And I’ve never heard of opium being a problem in Persia anyway.”
“Oh, have you been to Persia, Philippe?” Decaen teased.
Almost instantly, Philippe shot back, “Have you?”
If there was anger in his tone, his friends dismissed it, turning their attention to more tea and wine before they spoke again.
“I wonder,” Grignard said, dabbing a cloth against his lips, “what stories our Persian friend could tell?”
“Perhaps we can expect to be here for one thousand and one nights.” Decaen laughed, and as the others chuckled, Philippe laughed along, throat tickled by a vague unease.
“What does this fellow look like?” Eloise asked, looking to Philippe, an honest question.
“A man of healthy height,” Philippe answered, “not terribly tall but easy on the eyes.”
Decaen scoffed. “Are we thinking of the same Persian? All I saw was a madman. Dark, messy, and not right in the head.”
“Well, I believe Philippe,” Grignard said, “these orientals only come in two types, you see- pathetic wisps and exotic beauties. Perhaps he’s the latter.”
“I should hope so.” Eloise brushed away a lock of hair. “Or we’d have to question the dear count’s taste.”
“He is,” Philippe stated with no small irritation, “I assure all of you.”
As if just remembering, Margot chimed in, “His eyes were green! Yes, they frightened me that night but they were rather brilliant, really.
“Green eyes,” Grignard mused, “then he must have some western-”
The doors opened. Philippe hopped to his feet, rushing to greet the Persian as the butler showed him in. If the man had heard their conversation, no sign of it appeared on his face.
“Come, Come!” Philippe said, perhaps too enthusiastically, “let’s all get acquainted.”
The Persian removed his hat, and after the butler took his coat, found himself a seat beside Philippe. To the count’s surprise (and perhaps irritation), he’d come dressed in a creamy robe, a dark vest on top.
“I thought we decided on a striped suit,” Philippe whispered in his ear.
“I thought this would amuse your friends more,” the Persian whispered back, and bristling, Philippe could not tell if he was joking or not.
The Persian greeted Philippe’s friends, exchanging as many polite niceties as he could. The man was even less talkative than usual, but he was glad to answer any questions they had. He was nothing but a gentleman, perfectly fit to converse with the count’s peers, and as Philippe watched him speak and smile with his friends, he felt his worries fade away.
“How do you find Paris?” Grignard asked.
“Perfectly adequate, Madame, though the weather leaves something to be desired.”
For her part, Margot seemed afraid to speak, eyes transfixed on Philippe’s newest guest in a most disagreeable way. It seemed she’d yet to shake the image of him raving in Box Six, but Philippe suspected there was more reason than that.
“It’s all desert land back east, isn’t it?” Eloise said.
“There are deserts, yes.” The Persian eyed his cup but did not drink. “But I hail from Mazandaran. It is a coastal province.”
“Why, you learn something new every day!”
As his friends laughed, Philippe fidgeted with his cravat. He too had assumed Persia was a strip of sand. And in his head, he cursed the Persian for not telling him of Mazandaran sooner. It occurred to him, then, that he had told the Persian everything and the man had told him nothing. This did not sit well.
“Perhaps we can hear a few words from your mother tongue?” Decaen said.
“Yes! We’re all quite curious. I’ve only ever heard Hebrew once.”
“Oh, let him talk already,” Eloise said, and then as they all looked eagerly to the Persian, he obliged.
And whatever he said sounded- admittedly- not as unpleasant (nor throaty) as Philippe had expected. A few hard notes here and there, but there was a lilting quality to the man’s voice itself.
“What did it mean?” Philippe asked.
“I rubbed soap on my stomach.” The Persian smiled- for once- while the others chuckled, and when they pressed for its meaning, he said, “Only an idiom. I let my hopes get the better of me.”
And I was disappointed. Philippe knew the words before he heard them. And that same unease in the back of his brain told him the words were directed at him. The count did not speak for the rest of the hour, listening instead to his friends’ curious questions and the Persian’s nonchalant answers.
No, he had never owned a harem. He had experience with one, but he was not allowed in. No, he had never eaten pork nor did he intend to start. Yes, he did not mind slipping in a few drops of wine every now and then. He learned French from his father, who had passed on long ago. Yes, he quite enjoyed the Opera, though he could not understand the lyrics more than half the time. Yes, he had seen men kill in the streets of Tehran, but he had also seen men kill in the streets of Paris. Yes, his complexion was common. And no, his eye color was not rare.
And then, pausing to take a sip of tea for once since he arrived, the Persian said, “It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m afraid I must leave now.”
“We haven’t even served lunch,” Margot said, breaking her silence, “surely you’ll stay!”
The others were quick to agree, quite taken with their guest. But the Persian shook his head. “No, I must go. Thank you, Philippe, all of you, for having me.”
“I see there’s no stopping you, my friend.” Philippe bid him goodbye and watched as the butler showed him out.
Once the doors closed, Eloise turned to him and said, “Philippe, you were right- he really is handsome!”
“Yes, yes,” Grignard said, “I’d wondered how you went from seducing ballerinas to Arabs, but this makes sense.”
Before Philippe could correct him, Decaen mumbled, “The accent leaves something to be desired.”
Eloise picked at the crumbs of her plate. “But it was fascinating to hear him speak Persian. The Romantic languages get boring after a while.”
“Yes,” Grignard laughed, “perhaps dear Philippe can arrange to meet an Ottoman next. So we can compare.”
“Or you can bring in that Jew you mentioned,” Decaen teased, “why not a Chinaman next, let’s pick through the east one by one.”
“I, for one, am not opposed to making new friends,” Margot said, to which Eloise argued, “Really? You were looking at the Persian like he had two heads.”
And as they bickered, Philippe looked to the door, wondering if the Persian could hear. Surely he had left by then. And it occurred to him that perhaps his friends had not came to call on him after all- perhaps they’d only gathered to get a closer look at the Opera’s famous Persian. He wanted to scold them. He wanted to call them closed-minded little things, but the thought only left his tongue dry.
Because for all their ugly words, Philippe could not bring himself to think any less of the people he called friends. And that made him think less of himself.
The stagehands and apparently some of the showgoers had stopped speaking to Philippe, sometimes giving him a wide berth as he approached. It was not particularly bothersome since the count rarely spoke to these people as it was, but their silly superstitions did miff him. He only went to the Opera with the intention of seeing Sorelli anyway, everything on stage merely a blur.
He still met with the Persian once or twice a week in their flat, but since the luncheon, the other man became more engrossed with other affairs. He spent more time in his own home and more time lurking the halls of the Garnier. He was essentially as hard to read now as he was back then.
According to Sorelli, Poligny’s stunt in Box Five resulted in a series of minor crimes and hefty accidents attributed to the ghost. He’d even taken to harassing M. Debienne, and however he chose to do it, it left both men looking twenty years older than they were. The ghost had dropped warnings whenever it could, and it seemed that the managers were determined to ignore them with all their might. But in Sorelli’s opinion, it was a losing battle.
“Any manager who bows down to a faceless prankster isn’t worth his salt,” Philippe had said, and he’d meant every word.
When Sorelli asked of his Persian, Philippe told her nothing. And that was all she needed to know that he was suffering. As they embraced, she asked him not to be too upset by what she would say next:
The Persian had stationed himself in a corner of the foyer, telling anyone who entered to be wary of the light fixtures. The boxkeeper, whose name still slipped Philippe’s mind, did the same thing, and rumor had it they were both working with the so-called ghost, however different their reasons. It seemed that the boxkeeper was saying these things on the prankster’s behalf and the Persian thought himself some savior of the common people.
“And just when I thought his madness had ceased!” Philippe said, followed by a ragged sigh. Damn that man!
Philippe would wonder once or twice in the next few years if it would have ended the same way had he not been so livid that night. He’d stumbled out of Sorelli’s dressing room, intent on dragging the Persian away from the limelight and forcing this behavior to end. He could not be seen with such a man if he chose to continue this way, and for the Persian’s own sake, Philippe simply found it unhealthy-- and he did not wish to see his friend committed.
He sauntered towards the Persian, aggravated by the onlookers that’d stopped to stare. The Persian’s gaze had been on something above. When he saw the count, the man started and said, “Philippe- stop!”
But the count refused. He pushed on, and in the second he heard the snap of rope, he felt the Persian ram into him. Philippe’s back hit the ground, head knocking against marble as he saw stars above. The Persian had tackled him, sweaty hands clawing into the fabric of Philippe’s suit.
He heard the Persian call his name as two guards wrenched off Philippe’s person. Still warm from the body that had been sticking so close, Philippe sat up, head throbbing as it no doubt swelled.
“What’s gotten into you!?” he snapped, the pain and frustration too much to bare. “I ask and I ask and you say nothing!”
“The light- the light!” was all the Persian could say, “I thought-”
Philippe looked up. One of the lights was indeed swaying, but the cords holding it up were perfectly in-tact. The snap had come from the broken clasp of a woman’s purse in the gathering crowd behind.
“You thought?” Philippe said, flabbergasted, “you attacked me because you thought? Why would you think such a thing?”
The Persian’s mouth tightened in a grim line. Looking to the guard that kept the man bound, the count said, “Let him go.”
“But-”
“He won’t touch me again.”
Reluctant, the guards released the Persian and Philippe walked towards him, the shame of having been caught in yet another raving incident burning hot within.
Eyes hardened, he said to the Persian, “Never. Touch me again.”
For a moment, hurt crossed those green eyes. Then the Persian blinked it out, and swallowing, said, “I will not. My apologies, M. le Comte.”
Philippe nodded. And they parted as strangers.
When Philippe next returned to the flat, the Persian’s toothbrush had disappeared. The wardrobe belonged to him alone once more. And the flat was as empty as it had always been.
Come Saturday, the woman would change the bed’s sheets. Philippe told her to throw them out.
It was a rainy morning, much like the rain Philippe saw when he first invited the Persian to dinner, when the manor staff informed him of an odd guest. When he asked who was at the door, the footman said it was a stranger, a swarthy man in a trench coat.
“Turn him away,” Philippe had ordered from his study, but this guest had insisted.
And perhaps because he still had a soft spot for the Persian, Philippe did not like the idea of leaving him in the rain. He told the servants to let him in and he would meet the man in the parlor.
But to his surprise, it was not the Persian he knew on the couch. The man stood up to greet him, his eyes dark brown and his hair a shock of healthy black.
“M. le Comte, thank you for allowing me in.”
Philippe did not bother shaking his hand, but he did insist the man sit. The count sat across from him, and deciding that he had never seen this man in his life, asked, “Monsieur, who are you and what business do you have with me?”
“My name is Darius. You may know my master as ‘the persian’,” he said politely, “I came to return your umbrella.”
“Oh.” Philippe remembered, then, the familiar item in his footman’s hands. “Thank you. Is that all?”
Darius regarded him for a moment too long, and when Philippe was about to raise a brow, the man said, “Yes.”
The count chuckled dryly. “No, I think there’s more you wish to say. Be my guest.”
“No, it’s not my place, M. le Comte.”
“I wish to hear. I won’t hold it against you.” This much was true. Philippe recalled the Persian mentioning a manservant a few times, but it felt rather otherworldly to stare the man in the face. And as loathe as he was to say it, he did want to know if the Persian still thought of him. More times than he could count, Philippe considered asking the man to start anew.
“I believed you were an ill fit for my master from the start.”
The count’s brow hiked up. But more intrigued than anything else, he said, “I was a bad fit? Do explain.”
“I see no reason to.” Darius smiled, rather coldly. “Do you know his name? He was not born ‘the persian.’”
Philippe wished to retort, but he did not. The Persian had never revealed his name, and Philippe thought it best to respect the man’s privacy. Or perhaps a part of him did think “the Persian” was enough of a name. Philippe no longer knew.
Darius saved him from replying when he went on, “It’s all right, M. le Comte. My master doesn’t begrudge you. But I do. He is a great man and I’m sorry you could not see that.”
“Your master attacked me over a light that didn’t even fall.” As soon as the statement left, Philippe berated himself for jumping on the defensive. What reason had he to defend himself against a madman’s servant?
“If that’s how you see it, I will not stop you.” Darius folded his hands across his lap. “But do understand- my master comes to this country so far from home. He speaks a language not his own. He walks amongst cold strangers and strange customs every day. He meets hostility wherever he goes, but he rarely returns it. The French should think, ‘Ah, he is braver than I’ yet they do not. Now tell me, Count de Chagny, in his place, could you have done the same?”
Philippe did not speak. Darius stood up and bowed lightly. “I don’t expect an answer. I can show myself out- I promise you, I won’t return.”
As Darius passed, Philippe- overcome with irritation and the feeling of having been talked down to- said, roughly, “So what is your master’s name?”
“Forgive me, M. le Comte. I do not wish to hear his name sullied by your lips.”
Philippe had half a mind to strike the man, but he only sighed, saying nothing as Darius took his leave. It was a relief, in a way, to know the Persians were out of his life for good. He had no time to waste on guilt or regret-- what reason had he to? He hoped the Persians would purge him from their heads as well.
Count Philippe de Chagny was not a fickle man and perhaps this was both his greatest virtue and greatest flaw. Once he set his mind on a matter, that was it. Men like him did not have time to be fickle. They did not have time to sit and think.
In the following years, he would pass the Persian many times at the Opera. But he never cast the man a second glance again. He had no reason to, just as he had no reason to know the boxkeeper’s name.