élegie.

[waywardious]

Elegy: A funeral song or a lament for the dead.

The postman delivered the telegram to him on a Tuesday. The second Tuesday of December, a month into the Opera’s frantic preparations to stage Ibsen’s The Lady of the Sea, a month and a half after their catastrophic cancellation of La Bayadère (and even more catastrophic stopgap of a Sylphide)… Two months after Pavel had been called back to Russia, Claude finally received word with a brusque “there’s mail for you, monsieur”.

By nature, the telegram was its own kind of brisk, too. Of course. Every letter a costly affair. As he pieced them together, heart dropping in his chest, he realised (flatly) that no flourish nor romanticism could have saved the message anyway. The message was what it was. It couldn’t be reversed.

It couldn’t…

PAVEL HAS BEEN HUNG ON CHARGES OF DISOBEDIENCE TO THE TSAR
ON THE 26TH OF NOVEMBER THERE WAS A PRIVATE EXECUTION WITH FEW SELECT WITNESSES
HE WAS BURIED THE FOLLOWING DAY IN AN UNMARKED GRAVE
MY CONDOLENCES

With a heavy thud, Claude sat down on the nearest object of a fitting size. An old, wooden chest, in this case. Staring unseeingly at Elizaveta’s last attempt at helping them, he felt an emptiness fill his body that he had never experienced before, stiffening his muscles and following his bloodstream out into every extremity. It was a cold and senseless and deep emotion, like the cleft in a glacier. One of these phenomena in the face of which you were inevitably too small and insignificant. One of these laughs of nature that could kill you, because you were only human, as it became clear.

Only human.

He stood up. The paper slip crumbled between his fingers while he threw four-six-ten logs into the fireplace, an uncaring kindle of hay on top. All in the wrong order, but see if he cared. Watching the fire catch on, feeling the slowly growing onslaught of heat slapping against his front, Claude didn’t read the telegram again. Not once. Not once before finally dropping it onto the fire. Leaving it to burn, like a faggot. Its contents were already edged into his memory. Oh, he knew. Knew that he’d always be able to recall those words, vividly. He might try, but he wouldn’t forget. He couldn’t.



~*~



A funny observation, wasn’t it? That scouring your home for alcohol should (eventually, after a couple of hours turning every stone, every corner) produce such a spoil. Half of this stuff, he didn’t even know he owned. Take this small keg of rum, for example! Claude didn’t remember buying it, never noticed it before, perhaps partly due to its hiding place underneath the bed, naughty little surprise in the far, dirty corner… Honestly, he didn’t even remember ever liking rum and as he swallowed the first mouthful of it, he was suddenly reminded that he didn’t, actually. Well, he would just mix it with something he did like, then. Beer – he had enough beer to afford being generous, didn’t he? Pouring half a bottle of Belgian ale into the amber-hued liquid and he found the taste was undefinable enough that he didn’t need to think. About it. About anything.

Around him, the kitchen table was weighed down by a scape of glass bottles, tumblers, regular glasses, the odd keg and a copper flask that he’d filled with the last dregs of a cheap, bitter gin that tasted of nothing beyond the burn itself. At the centre of the arrangement, Claude was sitting, cross-legged. Above all of it, above petty things like floor and ground-level worries. He’d moved swiftly through the initial phases of inebriation, the lightness and the calm, the unquestioning contentment and the comfortable laziness… Now he was just numb and blank. When he looked out the kitchen window, he saw nothing. It was close to midnight, the sky pitch black and his vision blurry around the edges.

All was well. All was good.



~*~



When he woke up the next morning, it was to the drumroll of a thundering hangover. He groaned. Attempted to push himself off the countertop, but instead sank onto his side where the kitchen table was pushed up against the wall. Bottles toppled over all around him. Excruciatingly near to his ear, the clinking and clanking of glass. He didn’t move. Stared at the bed standing by the opposite wall, its usual position disturbed from last night’s quest for alcohol with which he might thicken his blood. Strengthen it… Claude licked his lips, immobile. All too aware that it was no dream, it was sheer reality.

Dry drool was clinging to the pronounced stubble that had overtaken his chin. He needed no mirror to confirm how awful he looked, but hardly as awful as he felt. Hardly even half as awful as that, he was ready to bet on it.

Eventually, he did manage to climb off the countertop. The entire place reeked of piss, sweat and the distinct smell of drunkenness that was difficult to pinpoint. Harsh; a real stench. In nothing but his breeches, Claude moved over to the patio door. Threw it open and stepped out on the narrow ledge with its rusted iron railing, chamber pot underneath one arm. “Look out,” he warned with a loud shout that echoed between the buildings, then emptied the whole thing (and it was rather full) out onto the street. Should he care who might get hit by his shit? Heaven knows, he’d been hit by theirs often enough to merit a return of the favour. Just this once.

Once inside, he shut the door again. Sat down on the edge of his dislocated bed and cast a glance around the room. Most of his alcohol was gone. He definitely needed more alcohol…

The Émile kid downstairs probably wouldn’t mind earning a five francs gold coin and if nothing else, Claude had money to spend. Nothing else, no, but money he had. To waste. To throw away. To burn. To hang.



~*~



He drank all day. And all night. Vomiting in every cask or bowl or basin he could find without having to search too thoroughly, before desperately opening a new bottle or emptying another glass. Now and then, he’d collapse in an uneasy sleep, waking up hours later bathed in sweat and showing only the white of his eyes. He hardly touched food, beyond some loafs of bread he’d picked up the day before. Before the telegram, before… It wasn’t stale yet, the bread, but well on its way. Claude figured they could go together.



~*~



At some point during the endless night between Wednesday and Thursday, Claude woke up once more to the gasping sounds of his own breathing, to his muscles cramping, legs kicking, hands battling whatever was within reach, be it the pots and pans stacked beneath the counter where he’d passed out on the floor or his own clothing.

The moonlight was stark, illuminating the room from three sides.

Lying back without truly relaxing, he found himself staring at the empty bottle of wine to his right that caught the light and dyed it the same dark red as blood. He turned his head. Inspected it. It was of a tasteless German production, but quality wasn’t required when the liquid was just the ticket that cost you the least.

Mindlessly, he reached up and grasped the bottle around its slim, delicate, fragile neck, weighing the thing in his hand. It wouldn’t take any flashy wrist-work to smash it on the table leg. Rather, the wrist-work would follow, later… Destruction was the easiest aspect of the process, really – and currently, all he was capable of creating would be shards, as it were.

There was nothing (left) here to convince him suicide was a bad idea in and by itself. He wasn’t a God-fearing man, Claude. Whatever God might have to say on the matter fell on deaf ears. He just wanted to sleep, without the nausea and the nightmares. Right now, forever sounded good to him.

A minute and a half ticked by, though – and Claude dropped the stupid bottle, leaning his even stupider head back on the uneven floor boards with their little gaps that pinched his hair and the knots that scratched at the curve of his skull, but physical discomfort he knew how to tolerate. Give him hurt of that nature, then he wouldn’t have to acknowledge the ache he couldn’t reach and undoubtedly couldn’t soothe, had he been standing with his very heart between his hands.



~*~



Not until Friday afternoon, did he realise that he hadn’t attended class or rehearsals at the Opera since Monday.

Neither did he care. What did it matter? What did any of it matter? He emptied his ale.



~*~



Saturday morning he woke up with a cock straining painfully against his stomach. Half-asleep and still in a prominent stupor, he started stroking himself, hoping it would be over with in a couple of minutes. Nevertheless, four seconds later, he was overwhelmed by a wave of nausea that had nothing to do with drinking and Claude quickly rolled over, supporting himself on flat palms while he emptied the fluid contents of his stomach out onto the floor in repeated, thick sprays. When there was nothing left, he simply lay there, choking on his own bile.

Empty. He was empty. He was empty and he hurt. Everything hurt. Crumbling down onto his elbows, the smell of his own discharge tearing at his nostrils, he broke. He cried. He wept like a fucking child, his face a canvas of tears and snot. Salt and sickening sweetness.

And throughout the entire thing, his cock didn’t demonstrate any decency. Mercy. Call it whatever you wish. He was so hard that physical discomfort suddenly felt like an entirely different concept. Something else and more.

After having composed himself, bathed his face in whatever musty water had remained untouched in his washstand until now and hidden his condition in layers enough that a ten-year-old wouldn’t question what lay behind, Claude conquered the stairs and all but poured gold coins into little Adrien Émile’s hands.

“Be fast about it,” he instructed.

Then, he returned upstairs to finish his last bottle of whisky. It had otherwise survived the previous night, for the most part. For the most part, Claude simply sat there – on his bed, eyes turned to his lap where nothing happened. Nothing happened and everything else had been dragged to a standstill along with the nought, Claude included. He could feel himself, like this. A void wrapped in… in…

He chugged down another drag of whisky.



~*~



Adrien had been good, had sent Ruben straight to his door and when Claude let him in, he didn’t comment on what he saw. Certainly, he cast a glance around, one strawberry blonde eyebrow going up ever so slightly, but after a moment’s worth of wondering, he turned to face Claude.

“What would you like?” No polite monsieur, no pretences at this being anything beyond the most rigid of businesses. Claude had heard about Ruben from some of the others at Ganymède; had heard he was reliable, discreet and a master of his trade. Claude had made use of prostitutes before, a few times. After he met Pavel, however, he had felt sure those days were over. Yet, look at him. Look at him now, Pavel hadn’t even been dead in the ground a month…

Swallowing thickly, he pushed the thought away. The flood of memories, glimpses of hair fairer than Ruben’s, the ghost of a touch. This? It was basic body control. Bought and paid for. It meant nothing, except a chance to sleep, perhaps. If not soundly, then undisturbed.

“How’s twenty francs for a buggering?” he asked, rhetorically. Guessing at Ruben’s price, offering more than his services were worth, he knew. Ruben’s eyes widened, but only for a second. Hastily, he blinked it off, this proof that Claude had missed by a gasp-inducing grand jeté. Wilfully, too.

“Great,” he answered. Neither of them addressed the height or heaviness of his pay. Instead, Ruben began undoing his trousers, tugging them down over his arse only and crossed over to the foot of the bed, grabbing hold of the frame. While he positioned himself, spreading his legs wide and leaning in, Claude hesitated. Truthfully, he’d hoped… he… “Do you have any oil or something? I don’t take it without,” Ruben cut into his hesitancy.

“I’ll get it, I --” Claude hadn’t been buggered for years. Whenever he and Pavel had taken it there, Pavel had always taken it uncompromisingly. A sigh. “I’d actually prefer if you used it on me.”

The pause was loud, albeit wordless. Straightening up, Ruben looked him up and down, a measuring look which might (under different circumstances) have been flirtatious. Finally, the boy shrugged. “Sure. Where’s the oil? You can take my place…”

So, Claude did, pointing towards the kitchen table on the way, the keg of cooking oil managing not to disappear even in the glassy crowd.



~*~



Ten minutes later, Claude found himself wailing into the crook of his own arm, Ruben burying into him without any palpable restraint. The both of them thoughtless and it was perfect. No, not perfect, it wasn’t perfect, but it was enough. One of Ruben’s hands was bending him over into an almost ninety degree angle, opening him up to a fault and keeping him locked in that position while he pounded into him, hard and fast. Claude’s arsehole, in turn, was burning, hurting so badly that he was crying from it and his plan was proving successful, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it just? Give them something to cry about, the faggots, the sodomites…

Strauss would be proud of him. So proud.

Stroking his own cock in a similar rhythm, though shakier, Claude felt his whole body reduced to the mere strain of muscle, flesh falling apart and blood running dry. A particularly painful forward thrust made him yell out something unintelligible, his arm swallowing most of it, though the sound travelled effortlessly all on its own.

His vision was starting to turn black around the edges. Not just blurry, he was sinking far below the surface… It felt amazing, it felt like Heaven. It felt nothing like him.

“Monsieur Bérubé,” his landlord’s voice sounded from outside his door. Followed by a knock. “Do you need help?”

Ruben froze. From one moment to the next, all motion ceased. The enforced volume of his cock pushed in only halfway. The pain faded to a dull throbbing from Claude’s arse to his balls, still tightening.

“Don’t stop,” Claude told him, whimpering and pathetically attempting to push himself on the boy’s length again. Monsieur Samson knocked once more, over and over. More and more insistently. Monsieur Bérubé, he continued to inquire in a loud voice.

“Tell him to go away, then,” Ruben insisted, making as if to pull out fully. “He’s going to kill me otherwise and probably you as well.”

Angrily, panicked, Claude slammed one arm backwards without looking, grasping blindly for Ruben’s upper arm and twisting it, forcing the boy to step forward, right back into the gaping hole of his arse. It was a stark relief, the fullness, the burn, all these sensations that were his, but not him. “Don’t stop, I’m not paying you a single livre, if you do…”

From then on, it became a simple matter of winning. Of staying alive on the battlefield, Ruben’s fingers grasping him by the hair and slamming his face sideways into the round bedpost. Claude cared little, cared only for the fact that the boy had picked up his unrelenting thrusting again, his thick cock tearing at Claude’s inner walls like a trapped bird.

The metallic clatter of keys added to the pressure Ruben was applying. “Tell him,” he hissed, burying himself in Claude to the fucking balls, to the fucking base, to the fucking… Claude was drooling, sobbing and well on the way to passing out. How blissful. Blissful in comparison.

“I’m fine, Monsieur Samson,” he croaked. Ruben tightened his grip on his hair further, tugged his head backwards hard. Meanwhile, Claude’s fingers jerked at his own cock manically. He was so close. He was trembling. “It’s just some new exercises… for the theatre… it’s just…”

About to moan, Ruben’s hand moved to clamp over his mouth, the sound choked to a wet rattling against his palm. Claude came in a few, hard spurts. His vision blackened until his eyelids fell shut, softening the shade into brown and red and a sting behind his eyes. A pressure, Ruben unable to fight the contractions of Claude’s abused arsehole. He spend himself silently, Claude still groaning and moaning and possibly weeping enough for the both of them, all his weight pushed into the support of Ruben’s open hand.

On the stairway, Monsieur Samson’s footfalls were retreating.

Saying nothing, Ruben released him. Withdrew his hand, pulled out of his arse, left Claude in a crumbled heap with his forehead resting against the corner leg of the bed. When the boy tugged himself back into his trousers, it wasn’t just oil and semen coating the length of his cock. Streaks of red caught the light as well, as if Claude couldn’t feel the scratches like this, sitting down. Down, down, down.

“Where’s my money?”

“On the coffee table. There’s forty, take what you want.”

Claude spoke with his eyes closed. Half a minute later, the door slammed and he knew he was alone.

Completely alone.



~*~



He didn’t remember crawling into bed. Didn’t remember getting out of his clothes, washing himself or a single step before the point when he found himself lying underneath his duvet, the white sheets stained with dirt and blood.



~*~



Every now and then, he’d open his eyes and stare at the ceiling for a couple of minutes. He wouldn’t be thinking about anything in particular. He wouldn’t be feeling anything in particular. He’d just exist in this vacuum. The empty space left behind.



~*~



The church bells rang Sunday morning, waking him up, but he didn’t move. Not at first. Wincing, he eventually rolled over on his side and closed his eyes to the sight of the impenetrable walls that surrounded him on all sides.

When he later got up to eat, the bread had turned mouldy. Every bottle had been emptied already. Ruben had taken all his gold.

He went back to bed and stayed there for the rest of the day. Not sleeping, but living even less.



~*~



You could say that he was fortunate, certainly, to have already put on a pair of trousers when Jules knocked on his door Monday morning. Then again, you could just as well say nothing to the like, seeing as his singlet was stained, he was sporting some heavy bruising up his cheekbone, he couldn’t walk right (even less, sit down) and the past six days had granted him what would by most be described as the dawn of a full beard.

Thus, he opened the door, coming face to face with Jules only to find the other man’s face falling. Yes, you could say he was fortunate, but Claude said nothing, knowing what came before. Wordlessly, he stepped aside and allowed his employer in.

“Good Lord, have you not been out all week?”

“No,” Claude replied. Hobbled over to the kitchen table still occupied by bottles of all kinds, leaning against the edge of it sideways. Crossed his arms over his chest, although it was more of an inward embrace.

Closing the door behind him, Jules surveyed the room silently. Looked from the messy bed, to the clothes stacked everywhere like the sorry yield of winter. Bottles, bowls, bread. Then, he looked at Claude for the longest of times, noticing the beard, his bloodshot eyes and the black circles around them.

“What has happened to you, my boy? You look nothing like yourself.” He seated himself gingerly on the edge of one of the armchairs, the one not splattered with puke. Claude realised, without caring about its implications, that Jules had chosen a position from which he’d have a perfect view of the semen and the blood that Claude had yet to clean up at the foot of his bed.

If he saw, he was polite enough to give no indication of it. If he had seen, Claude also had a numbing feeling that he himself would have reacted with none of the shame one might have expected. Would have. Expected. He was done with that. He was done.

“Did you know that Pavel was hung last month?”

It was no accusation. Claude’s voice was weirdly soft when he spoke the words. He imagined no, imagined Jules wouldn’t be cold enough to demote him in the direct wake of such information. The man was spineless, indeed – letting the management make such a decision and still persist that he had held his hand over Claude as they did, but he wasn’t cruel. In many ways, he had been a father to Claude since his instalment. A flawed father, but what could you do? Weren’t they all?

And Jules’ features said it all. “My God,” he answered. “I had no idea, Claude.”

The slightest of smiles. The first he’d managed in days and his lips curved as if rusty. Had they not been made of flesh, they would have creaked under the pressure.

“What a waste. He was an absolutely brilliant dancer.”

It halted, his smile. Claude’s entire figure froze. What a waste. Waste.

“Would you have said the same of me, Jules? Considering the life I’ve led, if they were to take it from me, would you say: My God, what a waste, he was such a talented dancer, after all. Ignoring the rest, ignoring --” Did you know Claude well, you’d recognise the warning in his tone. The danger hiding in his low pitch.

Jules knew him and Jules would not allow himself to be intimidated, not by anyone, least of all someone like Claude. In every way under him, however often he would reach beneath the table and drop a bone.

“Ah, in your case, my boy, I would more likely say that you were a dancer with a great potential, yet one who had never been willing to make the sacrifices necessary to realise it.”

Sacrifices. Never been willing to make…

Claude snapped. He saw red, though more than any colour, his mind went blank. Before he could control himself, he’d pushed off from the countertop and crossed over to the older man, leaning down to grasp hold of his lapels and drag him to his feet. They were almost the same height, but for once it was not a question of who was looking down on whom. It was a simple question of sheer, brute force.

“I’ve just lost the man I love,” Claude said through gritted teeth, voice a rumble. All darkness and shades. “And you have the nerve to tell me that I’m not willing to make sacrifices. Let me tell you something, I shouldn’t have to. Certain things I shouldn’t as readily allow as bruised toenails and broken bones. He’s dead, Jules. I lost him.”

Silence. Jules’ blush intensifying and his eyes narrowing to slits.

“If you do not release me immediately, Monsieur Bérubé, I assure you that the next thing you’ll lose is your job.”

Swallowing, Claude stepped back, letting go of Jules’ lapels. What did it matter that Jules cut him loose? He had no illusions that he was getting a high-profile role any time soon, least of all his soloist position. Likewise, he had lost all illusions that it mattered to begin with…

Someday, we’ll be able to dance with each other, Pavel. We’re going to dance on that cursed stage and people will see that it’s art.

His lips trembled. He calmed himself. Focused on his breathing, in and out. He needed to return to the Opera, didn’t he? Be it like the prodigal son… He needed to work the hours, break the sweat, he needed to climb back up the ladder, regardless of how long it would take him. A waste? Claude would ensure that it was the one thing Pavel should never be remembered as.

“Of course,” he heard himself respond in pleasant neutrals. “My apologies.”



~*~



On Tuesday morning, on the seventh day, Claude turned up for morning class, thoroughly bathed, newly shaved and every joint fighting him as he fell into line. He could feel the others all watching him furtively, some of them whispering amongst themselves and, he imagined, a few of them rather disappointed that he had returned. That he had been allowed to.

Jules had pulled him out of The Lady of the Sea, not that he had anything to do in the production that a poorer dancer couldn’t do as well. He had been instructed to attend every class. A couple of one-on-one sessions arranged for as well, to try and reform his technique. Claude had agreed. Said yes and thank you. Thought go to Hell for whatever else he was worth.

Now he forced himself through plié and arabesque. Took the slipper-clad foot to the side of his face that the danseur in front of him not so accidentally tilted too far and out of control.

Lifting his own working leg into a careful third arabesque, Claude rose on demi-pointe, struggling to keep his balance while extending his left arm in reverse, creating a parallel with the line of his leg and pointing (through all of him, his straining body) back, back, back.

Fingers faintly spread, as if reaching. For something. Undefined.