A Delicate Inquiry

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre feels very awkward as he makes his way to Valjean's room with a tray.

He didn't know what Valjean likes to eat, so he he'd settled for the simplest: bread, eggs, milk, coffee, some fruit. Combeferre had considered first asking Valjean whether he had eaten or not, and then asking him what he liked to eat.

But, on reflection, Combeferre had decided that the answer to the first question was very likely to be "no," if Hugo's account and the evidence of Combeferre's own diagnostic eye had any weight at all. And Combeferre knew Valjean wasn't going to give him a forthright answer to the second question.

Very likely the unfortunate old man would simply respond to such a query by speaking more about his daughter.

If confronted with an actual tray, however, Valjean might eat out of sheer politeness. Combeferre would take that. He could not heal Valjean's soul; he could only, at most, prevent Valjean from accidentally harming Enjolras's body via starvation or other neglect, while absorbed in grief.

Combeferre reaches the room door, takes a deep breath, and raps sharply. "M. Valjean? It's Combeferre."

Comments

[road_to_calvary]

Valjean has not left his room since this thing started. He has no wish to confront the world in Enjolras's body, and all these hotel rooms have water on tap. He did once consider leaving to get some food as well, but as he reached the door he thought of questions, and noise, and other people - and what if Cosette was in the bar, and he had to explain? No, it made far more sense to stay inside. He has a chair, he has a copy of Victor Hugo's book - not that he can bring himself to read further than his own first appearance; the memory of the wretch he was is too much to face at present - and he has the patience to wait until his body returns, and he can go back to where Cosette is.

The knock, therefore, comes as a surprise. He contemplates the door for a while - maybe Enjolras has returned, and there is damage to his body - and eventually gets up to answer it.

'Combeferre. Good day.'

[wings_of_a_swan]

"Good day, monsieur," says Combeferre.

He's still disturbed by the sight of what looks like Enjolras, but with some internal light snuffed out.

Valjean looks tired and worn, and paler than Enjolras usually does. Combeferre decides he was entirely justified in his fears.

"I brought you some food," he says. "I hope it's acceptable--I wondered, you see, if you felt unable to come down to get some from Bar. And I wanted to see how you're faring. This change, it may have health effects we don't know yet."

...there, couching it in medical terms should make his concern inarguable, right? Valjean can't brush that off, can he? Combeferre knows that's not actually true, but he can hope.

[road_to_calvary]

'...I see.'

He visibly hesitates, but there is someone standing in his doorway and he cannot very well just leave him there.

'Come in, monsie - - citizen. I am well, thank you. I do not feel ill.'

He stands aside, not knowing what else to do.

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre does feel like he's being underhanded by taking advantage of Valjean's politeness, but what else is he to do?

He notes the citizen, and feels even more like a scoundrel. The other man's courtesy is so accommodating and punctilious, and Combeferre is exploiting it, albeit for his own good and Enjolras's.

Nevertheless, he enters at Valjean's invitation. "Thank you. Where would you like me to put this?" Combeferre gestures at the tray.

[road_to_calvary]

'Oh. Uh-'

He looks around. There is nothing in the room, barring a hat and coat hanging on pegs by the door, so there are any number of surfaces to choose from. He gestures at the closest, the dresser in front of the big mirror, and steps away.

'Thank you.'

A pause while he casts around for words.

'Has Enjolras returned?'

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre places the tray on the dresser. "Won't you eat, monsieur, if you haven't already?" He tries to sound coaxing. He doesn't know if he succeeds. Coaxing isn't really his usual style. As his friends will happily tell him, lecturing and criticizing is more what he does.

"Not yet," he says, in response to Valjean's question. "I was wondering if you, while in his body, have been able to--see what he is seeing, or feel what he is feeling? If there's any emotional transference or connection between those who've had their bodies exchanged, I mean."

...Combeferre doesn't really wonder this. He's mostly asking as a surreptitious way of asking about Valjean's emotional state. This is Combeferre being stealthy.

[road_to_calvary]

He looks to the tray, and then to Combeferre, and then tries to bounce his thoughts between food and whether he has been feeling anything that might belong to someone else.

'I am not sure,' is what he settles on.

'To know that, would I not have to understand what Enjolras is thinking? To know if it is different from my own thoughts?'

[wings_of_a_swan]

"Possibly not," says Combeferre. "You may only need to know if you'be been feeling anything--foreign."

He gestures at the food again, wondering if this is how Joly feels all the time.

[road_to_calvary]

The tray again. Valjean glances to it, gives a brief, tight, smile, and pulls a chair out from the desk he has never used. It has been a while since he has eaten, and the young man has taken the trouble to bring it. It would be impolite to ignore it, even if he is just trying to look after his friend's body.

'I do not believe so,' he says, and pours coffee for both of them with another small, polite, smile.

'Are there reports of others experiencing this?'

Perhaps it would be useful to know. If he is about to be assailed with Enjolras's feelings and sights, he would rather be prepared.

[wings_of_a_swan]

He takes the coffee to be polite, then sits back and watches to make sure Valjean eats.

"I've heard of such things," says Combeferre mendaciously. He has, indeed, heard of such things--inside his own head. "So you haven't been feeling anything unusual?"

[road_to_calvary]

'I do not believe so?'

He sips his coffee. And then sips some more, aware that Combeferre seems to be...watching him.

'But perhaps it is because he is in Paris? If he were here, then...?'

He is trying to be helpful!

[wings_of_a_swan]

Eat something, he wants to say, but bites his lip instead. He looks meaningfully at the food, hoping Valjean will get the hint.

"Perhaps," Combeferre allows, then decides to be sincere and straightforward. Subtlety is not his forte, and he knows it. "You do seem very distressed, monsieur. Will you permit me to ask why, and if I may help?"

[road_to_calvary]

Ah. He would like him to eat.

Valjean picks up a piece of bread, and tears some off. He has been hungry these past couple of days, but it has worn down to a vague ache now, lost under the weight of his thoughts.

'Distressed? Well, my body is walking Paris without me in it, mo - citizen.'

He will get used to that one day.

'I trust Enjolras to bring it back, but it is strange.'

He is not sure where the man is getting 'distressed' from. He is sure he is not acting in any untoward manner. He is not shouting, or crying, or becoming violent. Whether or not it is an accurate description...he does not think he looks like it is.

[wings_of_a_swan]

Well, that's one goal accomplished: Valjean is eating. And of course Valjean's behavior is mild and proper, but Combeferre still sees distress writ plain on Enjolras's features, rendering that well-known face utterly alien.

"I expect so," Combeferre says, with genuine sympathy. "Especially since you are remaining away from your daughter until this passes. I imagine that's difficult indeed, monsieur."

[road_to_calvary]

He looks as though he is going to speak, but then the words go away and he looks down instead, the bread worrying between his fingers rather than going towards his mouth.

'Yes,' he says, after the pause has reached a length that could be awkward.

'But she is a married lady now, a Baroness! She has a fine husband who is very handsome, and who will care for her; a very good man, who - - well, you know him, monsieur, you do not need me to tell you. She is well, and time does not pass. I will see her when I return.'

Soon, he hopes. Soon.

[wings_of_a_swan]

"And she would like you to eat, I expect," Combeferre says, with a hint of a smile.

"Marius is a good man indeed," he adds. "Though a trifle..."

How to put this tactfully?

He gives up. "But I have every confidence in your daughter's happiness, with you as a father and Marius as a husband."

[road_to_calvary]

There is the hint of a smile at that, because yes, Cosette likes him to eat. For a moment he is lost in the memory of her insisting that she would eat black bread like him, and so making him choose white.

He eats a bite, and the smile fades away.

'But you say you have read the book, monsieur. You know I am not her father.'

What is the use of trying to pretend it is so when they both know it is not?

[wings_of_a_swan]

Ah, good! Another bite! Combeferre wonders if this is how mothers feel, with recalcitrant children who pick at their food.

He raises his eyebrows at Valjean's words. "On the contrary," he says, with heat. "I know you are her father, as truly as any man could be a father, and more so than most! Indeed, your selfless devotion to your child is an example to fathers everywhere. It's unmatched by any father I know, and your one failing, monsieur--if you will forgive such an impertinence--is to underrate yourself, and your own importance to Mme Pontmercy's life."

...has he gone too far, presumed too much? Perhaps, but he couldn't sit there and let this sad old man refer to himself as not Cosette's father. What a cruel, heartless lie!

[road_to_calvary]

The words wash over him, heard but not absorbed, a silk sheet fluttering past his ear and off on the breeze.

'I am an ex-convict, Combeferre.'

He says it heavily, his eyes off towards the far wall.

'You have read the book, you say. Then you know the truth of the matter. Very well: I have told it to Enjolras in any case, and he trusts you. You and I from the same world, and so you understand, do you not? That I cannot have a daughter, and do not, for her own sake.'

[wings_of_a_swan]

"I know," says Combeferre. "Monsieur, I needn't explain to you that ex-convicts aren't barred from loving, or being loved. Your daughter will love and honor you, and bitterly grieve any separation from you, regardless of your status. I don't know her well, but I'm sure of that. And if it's arrest and public exposure you fear--why, who is to know? You say yourself the spy won't arrest you."

[road_to_calvary]

'I do not fear arrest, monsieur.'

And he knows Cosette will not grieve separation from him. She has Marius, and nothing else matters. It is as it should be - and he is glad because he would not wish grief on her for anything, and especially not on his account.

As for not being barred from love - no, that is true enough. Under certain conditions, none of which are met in this case. If he lived under the stricture of his yellow passport, he could love all he liked so long as he kept to the law. But as a parole breaker? With her future riding on the reputation he has falsified for her? No. No, not at all.

'It is hard for you to understand, I know.'

But he does not feel the need to explain, nor does he have the capability. It is what it is, and in any case, it is too late now. He has told Marius, and he can recall the look on the man's face when he confessed every time he closes his eyes. There can be no reconciliation with that.

[wings_of_a_swan]

No--he doesn't fear arrest, he simply believes himself unnecessary to Cosette, and undeserving of anything that could give him happiness. Combeferre understands why generations of readers wept and tore out their hair to read of the plight of Jean Valjean.

"It is, and there's no need for me to understand, I know," says Combeferre. "I'm no one to sit in judgment on you, and I wouldn't presume to. It only seems to me that you cause yourself unnecessary and undeserved pain, monsieur."

"And not only yourself, but your daughter, who has known the love of no father but you," he cannot resist adding. Is it cruel, manipulative, presumptuous? Perhaps. It's also true.

[road_to_calvary]

'She has the love of her husband.'

Anyone who has seen Cosette, he thinks, cannot honestly say that she has any need of him. Marius is her world, and not only is that as it should be, it is good because it means she will not suffer from losing her father.

'She is happy. There is no doubt of this.'

She radiates it, and he will not spoil it for anything.

[wings_of_a_swan]

"I know married couples are always absorbed in each other, and have little time for others, at first. That's natural." Or so he's been told; Combeferre's certainly never tried it out. "But woman does not lose need of her father simply because she marries, no matter how loving her husband is. Indeed, she may have even greater need of her father, for who else will protect her from her husband?" And here he's speaking from his own observations, the bruised and bloodied and dying women, but also the neglected ones, the ones whose husbands don't take their health seriously. Not that Marius would do that. But--he does other things, at least in Hugo's account, and Combeferre has no trouble believing it.

Combeferre takes a deep breath. "Monsieur, I cast no aspersions on Marius Pontmercy. A good man, and a comrade. He would never harm your daughter intentionally, but he's a fallible man like any other, and his faults--in my view--include a stubborn, ungenerous refusal to listen to others. When faced with disagreement, he fights or retreats; he does not listen. Mme Pontmercy will some day need him to listen. We all have our flaws, and they may lead us to wrong even our loved ones, perhaps especially our loved ones. Especially wives and children. If a husband wrongs his wife, her loving nature will leave her unable to defend herself--and the law gives her husband full authority to do as he pleases. So who will take Mme Pontmercy's part, if Marius fails her, and you're not there? Marius's grandfather? He's likelier to take Marius's part, and--well--he's a capricious and tyrannical man, who used to beat his servants and Marius. Only a father can be relied on to defend his daughter, even against her husband if need be. And even a woman married to a good husband may require such a defense."

Another deep breath. "I can't tell you what to do, and I wouldn't even attempt to. But married women need their fathers, monsieur, just as much as small girls."

[road_to_calvary]

Valjean, in Enjolras's body, is at first the picture of detachment. But Combeferre does not stop talking, and he cannot help but listen. He cannot unhear these implications that Marius, light of his daughter's life, may not be the man Cosette thinks he is.

'You think he will wrong Cosette?'

His voice is nothing but quietly befuddled pain.

'You think she will need defending against him? But he loves her, monsieur, he looks at her as if she is sent from heaven. He would not hurt her; they are happy, it is bliss, he is the finest of young men.'

Cosette believes it, and so he believes it. And also, a rational part of his brain - sadly smaller than the irrational, these days - knows that even if this were true about Marius, even if there were proof, Cosette would never believe it.

[wings_of_a_swan]

"They're happy now," says Combeferre. "And I trust they will remain so. He's a fine man, as you say. But--he is a fallible man, and husbands have great power. Much as he loves her, he may still hurt her accidentally, and she'll need to go to you, to be comforted and defended. A father's love is more selfless than a husband's, monsieur."

If he's being brutal, he's also speaking the truth, and surely it would be still more brutal if Valjean never heard this?

[road_to_calvary]

Even more than Cosette's potential refusal to listen, what Valjean thinks, and does not say, is that even if this were true...he does not think he will be there to help in any case. It is a sensation that has stayed with him since the night of Cosette's wedding: that there are no battles left, and he has no energy for them in any case. He knows he has nothing but his visits with Cosette, and even those - - well. He has made sure he is no longer a father, and if she finds she can manage well enough without them, then he will have completed his removal from her life.

'There is an aunt,' he says, mostly to himself but also to the floor.

'She may side with the Baroness - well, she is a woman, of course she must. And Madame Pontmercy is no weak girl, and then, the Baron is very careful and cherishes her. Toussaint is with her, and no doubt she will have a staff very soon, as rich young couples should.'

He raises his head, and speaks more clearly.

'All is well, monsieur.'

[wings_of_a_swan]

Combeferre is almost ready to shout from frustration. He now understands why, several months ago, Enjolras came back from a conversation with Valjean looking exhausted.

(It's all the more disturbing that Valjean wears Enjolras's face while speaking these miserable, beaten words).

"Marius's aunt will not love Mme Pontmercy as her father does, nor will the staff. And the strongest lady might have need of her father's love. Monsieur," he says, leaning forward earnestly, "your love for her is so plain and so deep. Why deny her that? Out of a small, thin fear, which you yourself have acknowledged is unlikely to come true? And, perhaps, out of your unwarranted sense of self-blame--wholly unwarranted, monsieur, for I know you to be among the best of men, I know it from Enjolras and from Victor Hugo and from the evidence of my own eyes at the barricade. You think your daughter would agree with this blame, but I can tell you, no rational soul would, let alone a generous and affectionate one. That fear and blame needn't rob you and your daughter of the further joy you might bring each other. Or the protection you might give her."

He takes a deep breath. "Forgive me, I know I'm speaking out of turn. But I cannot watch a man so grievously wound himself, and his daughter, without saying something about it." Combeferre gestures at the half-eaten food. "At least eat something, and consider what I've said, if you will not agree to it here and now."

[road_to_calvary]

He wants to badly to believe this is true. That Cosette would not care, and love him anyway. But does he have any right to that love? And then there is the Baron, who made it clear that he would not be so accepting.

'Monsieur, she has a husband who knows the truth, and he is the master of their house.'

It is the only allusion he will make to Marius's reaction.

'And I do still see her - every day, for a little while. But I will consider what you have said.'

He will, too. For a while. But he has wrestled with this problem over and over again before taking the decisions he has, and there is only so much he can torture himself with things that now, cannot be changed.

[wings_of_a_swan]

It's allusion enough for Combeferre. His brow furrows. "What did Marius say to you? That--"

He breaks off. "Monsieur, please don't let young Marius and his misguided notions banish you from your daughter's house. If he's the master of their house, she is its mistress, and surely deserves a say. You say you see her daily--well and good, please don't let him change that." He sighs, and gestures at the food again. "And please, eat, if you will."

[road_to_calvary]

He thinks Marius has the right to change that if he likes - indeed, he did say that he did not think Valjean should come any more, and only changed his mind when he had begged.

'The Baron is a good young man.'

He lets him come to the house. He is the best of men.

'I will finish it later, monsieur, I have little appetite just now. You need not worry about your friend's body, I will not let it waste away.'

[wings_of_a_swan]

The Baron is a good young man. Combeferre ardently wishes he could have a brief but emphatic conversation the good young man. Was Hugo accurate in how he depicted Marius? It's sounding more and more like it.

"Good," says Combeferre, "but not infallible, and capable of grievous, tragic error, like any man." Perhaps he should leave it at that? It sounds like Valjean has listened, at least, even if he hasn't been moved yet.

At Valjean's last words, he frowns. Well. He can hardly stand over Valjean like a nursemaid, watching while the old man eats, bite by bite. "Very well," Combeferre says. "Please do finish it, monsieur. And if it's not an imposition, may I call on you in a few hours? To see if you're experiencing any ill effects of the body change."

...and to see if he's eaten. The role of nursemaid does not suit Combeferre, but apparently someone must assume it.

[road_to_calvary]

'If it please you, Combeferre.'

He sounds tired, and as if he simply cannot trouble himself to object. He does not believe there are going to be any ill effects of the swap - indeed, he is sure it is a ruse - but if it is an imposition then he does not let it show.

'It is good of you to check. I am sure all will be well.'

[wings_of_a_swan]

He knows Valjean likely sees through his ruse. But as he'd hoped, Valjean's acquiescence extends to allowing Combeferre's excuse to stand.

"Good day, then," Combeferre says awkwardly. He rises, gives a slight bow, and leaves the room, feeling like he's just done battle with a brick wall.

[ooc: wrap here? gah, Valjean! :D]

[road_to_calvary]

[OOC: Yep, allgood! <3 Combeferre. :D]