Stages of Grief
by Angela D'Onofrio

Scene I. Denial

See the market place in old Algiers
Send me photographs and souvenirs
Just remember when a dream appears
You belong to me...
And I'll be so alone without you
Maybe you'll be lonesome too...
~ Jason Wade, "You Belong To Me"

Setting up the show is always her favorite part ... always. Picking out and trying on the costumes. She's like a little girl at Christmas. Fabric and diamonds instead of toys and dolls. She loves the feel of stepping on the stage for the first rehearsal, being fully in the moment for the first time. She says it's like being born again. I've always agreed. A part of me wants to say I taught her these things, this love for the stage, for the show, for everything it encompasses. But the other, wiser part of me knows ... it was in her all along.

And now we're here. For some reason I don't understand, Spectacular Spectacular isn't being run tonight, and we're clearing away the stage. She always cries when the sets come down. She says it's like some sort of stage spirit is dying. I always comfort her - I tell her it's a phoenix, and that it will rise again with the next show, feathers blazing bright in the spotlights and the glitter. She just has to help fan the flames. And so, she's always there to pay her last respects. But as we tear down the steps, the gilt hearts, the chains of crystal hanging from the ceiling beams ... she isn't there. I decide she's gone to do her grieving in private - after all, the tale of the Hindi Courtesan was the most magnificent thing the Moulin Rouge had ever seen.

Then ... the last vestiges of the pristine, perfect, opulent set are gone. And she still hasn't come to say goodbye. But I'm still waiting for her, in the middle of that empty hall ...

"Hawold ... what's wrong?"

Doesn't he know? "Satine ... she didn't come to see the set off."

I'd always thought Toulouse a friend. But ... what he said chilled me through. Friends aren't meant to lie that way ... And the way he spoke! Like I were a child!!

"Hawold ... Satine's dead."

Scene II. Anger

It's almost like a disease
I know soon you will be
Over the lies, you'll be strong
You'll be rich in love and you will carry on
But no - oh no
No you won't be mine
~ Matchbox Twenty, "You Won't Be Mine"

"WHAT?"

His voice was a little gentler, then. I think he was afraid... but out of all the reasons he could have been, I can't decide which it was. "She ... she died at the end of Spectacular. .... We were all there. Cwithtian ... he's a mess ... didn't you see him earlier when he came to collect the royalties? ... That was a week ago, and we haven't seen him since..."

"Christian."

"Yeth."

Christian, yes.... Christian. If he hadn't come into our little world, tried to break it open and bring sunshine backstage ... "Well, why should he shut himself away? He didn't know her!! And yet ... and yet ..."

I began to remember... I didn't want to, but I began to. I'd tried to make her push him away. And I'd meant every word I'd said. After all, one does have certain paternal instincts when persons of high talent are involved, and I certainly didn't want the boy killed. But ... there had been another reason I hadn't spoken. I wanted her to stay. She had to stay. She'd been my little strawberry ... ever since that day ... no, that dawn ... I can still remember the red sky, the way it glowed through the window on the grey sheet and played over her tears and her short hair. When I tried to comfort her, and she pushed me away. Piece by piece, we'd reassembled her dreams. She'd looked on me as a second father, a confidante, a close friend ...

And now she was gone.

She'd tried to take more than she could have. More than she could have at the time. How many times had I told her ... just wait! Just wait, and it will all come to you! If you work for it, if you wait, if you serve, if you endure... And she could have had her dream! That was the most maddening thing of all! We could have ALL had our dreams! The theatre, the higher salaries, the successes, the fame and the prestige of a real actress.... the pride of seeing that actress on the stage ... and knowing that you were there when she walked the road to get there. That was what I wanted. I wanted what she wanted, on top of my own wishes. I almost think I wanted her dream more than I wanted my own. ... It was all she had in that little backstage corner. My angel, my chickpea.

And she threw it all away for some penniless, inept, wallflower writer who knew nothing of our underworld or its taboos, its ettiquette, its RULES above ALL! He dared to tempt her, taunt her to break the ONLY rule I had ever set for her. The fool! And he dared to claim that he had more reason to grieve than any of us!

"Hawold... "

Toulouse's voice pulled me back in, somewhat. But not completely. ...... "And you! You encouraged it! You let them carry on right under your nose! Do you KNOW what he did to her? To us?"

"Hawold." Toulouse sounded injured. "It ... it isn't his fault, and ..."

"Are you saying it's MINE?"

He was definately scared, now. "Not at all! ... She was sick, Hawold, we all knew she was sick ... it was the stress that did her in, I know it ... what with Cwithtian and the Duke...."

The Duke!!! Of course. The Duke. He'd wanted more than Christian. He'd wanted my cherub ... wanted her in a way that even diamonds wouldn't justify. I should have seen ... He tried to take it all from us. The Moulin Rouge, our Sparkling Diamond ... I should have thrown the shirt off my back after him, and that still wouldn't have made him happy. And to think I tried to keep him here. Why? Because I'd needed the money.

Damnation, it WAS my fault ... it was all my fault...

Scene III. Bargaining

"I did this. ... God, Toulouse. I did this." I tried to look up from my shoes, to get a different viewpoint. Maybe that would clear my mind, or stop the headache that was forming - but the sight of the empty stage was a more concrete reminder of her absence than I could ever have imagined. "I've got to do something about this."

"Hawold..." He reached up, straining to put a hand on my shoulder, but wound up with it on my arm instead. "You can't. She's with God, now."

"She can't be with God," I blustered. "She belongs here! In the underworld! With me! ... She signed a contract."

"Some contracts don't always hold," Toulouse sighed.

IV. Depression

There's a letter on the desktop that I dug out of the drawer
The last truce we ever came to in our adolescent war
And I start to feel a fever from the warm air through the screens
You come regular like seasons, shadowing my dreams ...
~ The Indigo Girls, "Ghost"

In the years to follow, I never really will know how many days I spent, cooped up in my office. Going over paperwork and doing the bills and the payroll, of course - my grief never stopped me from doing what was necessary to keep the Moulin Rouge in business. But once the paperwork was out of the way, the days were always spent the same way, and they blurred into one long day of looking at old playbills, posters, letters, reviews ... One long day perforated by nights where the show itself was the only thing that got me up on stage. I'd said it myself so many times - it had to go on, and it did ... and due to years and years of practice, no one seemed to notice the mood that blanketed my days. To any patron of the Moulin Rouge, I was myself.

To any employee ... that was another matter. Toulouse came by frequently, trying to get me to come out and enjoy the day, walk in the garden, go to some cafe and endure the off-key warbles of paramours drunk on absinthe. I always sent him away, only to hear him mutter something about Christian being the same way. I wasn't angry at the poor boy anymore - no doubt, he was feeling the same as I. But it wasn't anger, and it wasn't necessarily sadness. I just ... existed. Without my little sparrow in my life, things weren't exactly livable. The show had lost its sparkle, the backstage was suddenly visible to me as the crowded squalor that it had always been, and ... the elephant in the garden... how empty it was. I'd closed my curtains to the light, and did all my work, day or night, by lamplight. Nini would come by each afternoon with a dinner plate - and, of course, a suggestion that she could replace Satine. I took the food, but never the offer. That she would dare to suggest such things while everyone's wounds were still fresh ...!

On the days that I did not tend to paperwork or reminisce, trying to recreate the world I had lost, I slept. Sleep was never quite easy, at first, but once I got there, I would be able to see her. It was always the same dream, over and over, and it was a favorite thing I clung to when I awoke.

I was in the garden of the Moulin Rouge, out at one of the tables under the Chinese garden lamps with a glass of something - I was never sure what. And Satine would come out from the dance hall, fresh from rehearsal, her hair tousled, and request to share the drink with me... I always gave her the whole thing. Then, she'd tell me how frustrated she was about things at rehearsal, and about courtesan life in general. Then ...

"Tell me about the stage, Harold. Remind me why I'm here." And I would always spin the stories for her, of the grand theatres I had been to, of the Opera in the heart of Paris. I had always wanted to take her there one day, but our schedules had never allowed for it. Once I finished my tale, she would always smile at me. "And I'm going to be there, someday, aren't I?" Of course, angel. Of course you are.

Then I'd wake up... I always hated that part. But one early spring night, the dream changed. Instead of coming into the garden from the hall, she came in through the entrance to the street. Her hair was down, impeccably combed out, no braids or curls. She sat down beside me and placed a hand over the top of my glass.

"Harold, you need to stop drinking this horrible stuff, it'll never do you any good." She took the cup from my grasp, much to my dismay, and tossed its contents into the bushes ... which seemed to droop slightly at the touch of the unknown liquid. "And ... don't worry. I'm fine where I am. I'm a star, Harold. Finally. It's wonderful. ... I miss you all ..." She paused, looking up across the garden towards the silhouette of Christian's garret, "but I'm happy. Please... you need to go back in there." Standing, she gestured to the dance hall, its doors open, music pouring from within. Wrapping an arm around my shoulders, she gave me a small kiss on the cheek and smiled gently. "Please ... and don't just do it for me. You need it, too... I'll miss you, Harold."

And then she was gone ... and I was awake, the morning sun brought into the room on a light breeze. "Go back?" I whispered. "But ..."

As if to answer, music suddenly began to drift from the courtyard outside, from the Moulin Rouge... the same music from my dream.

"If you say so, chickpea ... I'll give it a try."

V. Acceptance

It makes sense that it should feel this way
That you slowly fade and yet still remain
As if to say: Everything matters in such an invisible way
As if to say: It's O.K.
Fly...away
~ Poe, "Fly Away"

"Well....! Look who's here!" Toulouse grinned, abandoning his absinthe and tottering up to me. "Good to see you again, old fwiend."

"Good to see you, too, Toulouse," I replied faintly, making my way toward the stage. It was empty, at the moment, yes. But ... what had I said? The show always rose to fill the emptiness, every night. It might not ever sparkle again in the same way, no ... but it would be there, a reminder of what we had, what she had given us. Satine's legacy lay in every floorboard, every inch of red velvet and gold leaf, every piece of the restoration - and she would always be here in spirit. The dream alone had taught me that.

"So..." Toulouse followed me, putting a hand up to run it over the smooth wood of the stage platform.

"So." I echoed. "...What do you think the house will be like tonight?"

"Wonderful," he smiled. "And Hawold?"

"Yes."

"... They miss her, too."

He put a hand on my arm, and I sighed, kneeling to give my friend a hug of gratitude. "Good to know, Toulouse. Always good to know."

FIN