1851: Noel is a fiddler and singer near Rome. He joins a group of commedia performers who need someone to play the girl parts and Noel fits the bill. He's got the most beautiful voice and while very tall has the subtle round curves of a pubescent girl (side effect of the castration). He learns stage craft, improves the music of the troupe and learns slight of hand. He learns to drink from the copious attention thrown his way by the audience, both from men and women alike.
But Noel is a difficult person. He loves and hates his fellow performers and occasionally finds ways to trap them in compromising situations or bullying them into getting what he wants. And they abuse him too.
1852: the theatre group broke up over internal conflicts and Noel panicked because he thought that he would lose everything. He sided with a man who wanted to take the troupe in a new direction. Noel sides with him because he's a strong personality and also a bully. Those who stay with the troupe travel.
Everyone had to have more than one act, now: they had to make twice the show with a fraction of the cast. Noel had several. Noel became a shapeshifter in order to keep the circus going, playing beautiful music, creating a comedy act between himself and Nicole the violin, a burlesque act in mask and finally yes, the living corpse.
The corpse show became very popular and the company put pressure on Noel to do whatever it took to improve the act. The troupe leader decided to put Noel through a rigorous exercise and diet regimen to make his soft body more corpselike. Noel's obsession with self-mutilation gives the troupe leader power to control everything Noel did with his body, and Noel traded scarification and eventually permanent tattoos (done the hard way, as this was before the electric pen was invented in 1891) for more calories added to his regimen.
1853: Noel is 18. He's traveled all over Europe and is fluent in all the Romance languages, plus bits of German and English. His travels take him northward and he meets a man named Erik who takes him under his wing and shows Noel how much the circus life is abusing him. Noel (all but?) falls in love with Erik, learns Swedish for him and actually leaves the circus for a time. He spends a little time building things with his hands.
But one day Erik disappears. Noel never learns why, but becomes convinced that it's his own fault somehow. As he builds himself after this, he does so by finally putting himself at the center. He makes a plan for his life to become someone's court magician or court composer and re-emerges as a new Erik; ruler of his own destiny. His plan is long, but detailed. He bills himself as his own freakshow with a long and complex tale of being the ghost of Paganini so that he can perform music, display his mutilations and also frighten people. He re-enters the whole idea of circus with this new and empowered outlook and joins a large company who also employs a magician storyteller named Donnavan.
1854: Donnavan tries to teach Erik the ways of women and things get awkward and keep backfiring. This is where the infamous nun escapade happens. This is where Erik learns bad toxic masculine habits. Erik learns magic tricks better than Donnavan and he assists him with his act.
1855: their relationship became more and more strained. In the heat of a fight about a woman, Erik killed Donnavan. He panicked and fled for the east, spending a lot of the money he'd saved in the process. He started over in Indo-China and teamed up with some Tonkin pirates
1856: the second Opium war began, and one of the officers in the Chinese navy (Shan Ng-Tsai) was a Tonkin Pirate. Erik assisted him during the second opium war.
Erik liked opium a lot. And kind of liked war. He learned garroting and so-called "Punjabis lasso". Erik killed a lot of men. He made some money and --confident that he wasn't actively wanted anywhere, returned to his goal of becoming court magician. He sets up at Novgorod and gains many admirers for his incredible illusions.
1857: Daroga found him in Novgorod.
Also war broke out in Mazendaran
Erik seemed to not know good from evil and the Sultana delighted in watching him work.
He made the little Sultana laugh.
Jayran is made a permanent wife, much to the anger of the Qajars. Nuri (the grand vizier) is the subject of serious political intrigue but becomes "irrevocable". Jayran's son becomes heir in September.
1858: Daroga and Erik worked together frequently in times of political unrest. Daroga was usually the in charge of set up while Erik handled execution.
Jayran's son dies of meningitis.
May: Nuri's nephew brings about complaint on his uncle, but is tortured.
By August, there's a coup with a staged murder to bring down Nuri.
1859: Erik and the Sultana (Mas'ud Mirza's mother?) build torture chambers.
1860: Paris holds a contest for the design of the new, Napoleon Opera House. Erik enters the contest and is a finalist but loses to Garnier. Erik is pleased with Garnier's design and makes some inquiries about getting on the building team.
Jayran, the sultan's favorite wife dies, is perhaps poisoned.
(Book: Liminalities of Gender and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century Iranian Photography: Desirous Bodies)
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