Note: The story takes begins somewhen in the six months which lie between Act1 and Act 2 of the musical. So the events of Act 2 have never taken place.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from "The Phantom of the Opera". They belong to Gaston Leroux/ Andrew Lloyd Webber.
The letters
Chapter one:
"So you say that you are leaving me?" Raoul´s voice sounded incredulous. I simply nodded, knowing that the information would need some time to sink in. "But we´re engaged! We want to marry next month." Uttering these words he sank down on the steps that led to the entrance of our house. Now it was his house again.
Probably I should have waited till he had taken his usual seat in the living room, maybe even with a glass of some kind of alcohol in his hand. Looking down at his face, which had lost its healthy colour, I noticed that a drink would have done him good service in swallowing the news. But I had had to do it as long as I still had enough courage. I had thought about sneaking out of the house at night, but it simply wouldn´t have been fair. Raoul had always treated me well, and at least I wanted to bid him farewell in a decent way.
"This doesn´t mean I don´t like you anymore.", I said in a kind voice, sitting down next to him. "It´s just…my feelings for Erik are so much deeper." "You love him.", he stated bitterly. "Yes, I do, and he loves me. That´s …" "How do you know he still loves you?", he interrupted me. "How do you know he´ll take you in?" He was clutching at straws and, judging by the desperate expression on his face, he was well aware of it.
"I talked to him this afternoon.", I explained, working hard on keeping my voice neutral. I didn´t want the affection for Erik to be visual but couldn´t help smiling reminiscently at the thought of the conversation. Erik had been happier than I had ever seen him and of course he wanted me to move into his house. "All my possessions are already removed from the rooms and taken to the opera. There is but one thing…" Trembling slightly I pulled the engagement ring out of my pocket and handed it over to Raoul. Without a word he took it, clutching his fist tightly, as if to crush it. Then he slammed his hand on the stone step between us. "Raoul, please…!", I muttered, trying to hold his arm to keep him from hurting himself. "Don´t you dare touch me!", he snarled and jumped up. "Raoul, I don´t expect you to understand it. I just want you to accept it.", I said slowly, watching him pacing up and down the steps. "Never!", he shouted and stormed into the house, slamming the door shut behind him.
After a moment I stood up and went straight to the coach that waited for me on the street. "To the…", I began, but the coachman finished: "…Opéra Populaire, I know, mademoiselle. I have my orders.". Before I got in I turned around and threw my former home a last glance. ´What did you expect, Christine?´, I asked myself, watching the streets passing at the coachs window. ´All in all, he didn´t take it too badly. It could have been much worse.´ But somehow it was this thought that made me feel anxious. Perhaps the worst was yet to come.
Chapter two ( three months later):
As soon as I entered the room I saw it: another letter from Raoul! This one was attached to a large bouquet of flowers, which had been delivered to my dressing room. It had started two days after I had left him. At first the letters had arrived once a week and always at the same time, so that getting rid of them without Erik taking notice had been easy. But for the last fortnight they came every day, sometimes in the morning with the other mail, sometimes in the evening after the rehearsal. I often wondered whether Raoul wanted him to find out about them.
The flowers affirmed this possibility. It would be so much harder to hide them. Quickly I closed the door behind me and went over to the dresser, reaching for the letter. ´Don´t do it! That´s just what he wants!´, I tried to reason with myself but in vain. Something made my open the envelope and unfold the piece of paper inside it, just like every single one before.
My dear Christine! Do you like my flowers? I chose them especially for this day. The first dress rehearsal. I´m sure you look simply stunning in this long, dark red silk dress with the tight top. Are you still wearing it right now? I wish I was with you in this very moment. Then I´d slowly open it, button after button, till it would finally fall to the floor. Then I´d cover every inch of your body with kisses, and then – but I´ll leave that to your imagination. And I know you would enjoy it for you love me, Christine, and only me. One day you will realise that. Maybe there are certain things which can speed up your thought process. You can be sure that I´ll find out what to do, and then you´ll return to me. Yours always, Raoul
A dry sob shook me as I looked down at myself. I had liked my costume from the first moment I had set eyes on it but now all I wanted was removing it from my body as quickly as possible. Shaking from head to foot I changed into my dressing gown and let myself fall on the chair in front of the dresser, staring at the flowers. It was just in this moment that I noticed they had exactly the same colour as my dress. How could something that beautiful make me feel dirty, as if Raoul had actually done all these things to me? "They´re only words. They can´t hurt me.", I repeated over and over in a feverish whisper, fighting back tears. At least I wouldn´t give him the satisfaction of having made me cry.
A knock on the door caused me to jump and turn around hastily. It couldn´t be him, it was simply impossible. Was it? After all, he still was the well-respected patron. He could walk in and out of the opera as he pleased and apparently he did so, though I never saw him. There was no doubt that he had use his charm to find out how my costume looked. But what if he had come to me now to do what he had described? I saw the door handle moving downwards and had to realise that I hadn´t even locked it. Despite my desperate urge to do something I couldn´t react for my body was rigid with fear. It was too late.
The door swung open. "Oh, you are still here, Mademoiselle Daaé!" To my immeasurable relief I recognized one of the maids who cleaned the dressing rooms every evening. "I´m sorry if I have disturbed you, but I knocked and nobody answered, so I thought the room was empty. I´ll be gone in a minute." She talked on and on, while I sat where I was, breathing deeply to get my heart beat back to its normal speed. The maid came closer; obviously she wanted to empty the waste paper basket in the corner of the room. Examining me critically she asked: "Are you alright? You look a bit pale. Shall I get you a glass of water?". Her gaze fell upon the letter, which still lay on the dresser. Hastily I stuffed it into my pocket.
"No, no, I´m fine, really!", I replied. That seemed to be all the confirmation she needed to go on. "Maybe these flowers could do with some water.", she suggested a minute later. I stared at her in disbelief about the banality of the remark. How was it possible that the same flowers that meant nothing but pain to me could evoke the wish to do something as simple as watering them in her? "Please take them away!", I said in a would-be casual voice. "But they are so lovely!", she answered, picking up the bouquet. "Who are they from? Do you have a secret admirer?" She was new to the opera. She knew nothing about Erik, Raoul and me, nothing. "Are you sure you don´t want to keep them?" I nodded vigorously. She shrugged. "If you say so! I´m finished then. Good night!" Looking at the flowers in her hand and shaking her head the maid left the room, muttering something about capricious opera singers. I leant forward in the chair and buried my face in my hands. This constant threat had made me so nervous that I couldn´t even tell a maid from a possible attacker. Was it this what Raoul wanted me to become: a wreck, a shadow of my former self? How long would this go on?
Chapter three:
In the first time after my arrival at Eriks home it had been somewhat hard to accept that we spent the nights in separate bed rooms. Our attempt to share one, however, had only lasted for a few days. The sleeping patterns of a composer who mainly worked at night time and a singer who had rehearsals all day long simply didnt fit together. Forcing one of us to adopt to the other in a way that extreme would make neither of us happy, we had to realise as he had woken me up four times a night, trying to sneak back into bed.
But tonight I was glad that Erik didn´t see me like that, rolling from one side of the bed to the other in my fruitless attempt to sleep. I could hear Raoul´s voice, as if he whispered the content of his letters directly into my ear: You love me. I can make you forget him. One day you will return to me, begging to forgive you. You belong to me. "No!", I yelled without even realising it.
The next moment the door was opened, and Erik rushed into the room. "Christine, what´s the matter? What has happened to you?", he asked, sitting down on the bed. I flung my arms around him, my eyes burning with tears which had never been shed. "It´s alright, my angel.", he said soothingly. "I´m here. Why don´t you tell me what´s troubling you?" Not for the first time I thought about it, my face buried at Erik´s shoulder. But looking up into his eyes, which were shining brightly with affection, I couldn´t bring myself to doing it. "It´s nothing, just a nightmare.", I replied. That wasn´t a lie: All this was a nightmare. Only I couldn´t wake up.
He pressed his lips on my burning forehead. "Do you want me to stay with you?" I shook my head. As much as I longed for his company, it would only make things more complicated. He would ask more questions if he found out that I had the same nightmare over and over. I noticed a slight trace of suspicion in his voice as he said: "You can tell me everything, Christine.". All I could do was nodding. With a sigh he stood up and left the room, turning around on the threshold. "If you need anything, you know where to find me."
He closed the door almost soundlessly, plunging the room into darkness. Why couldn´t I just explain everything to Erik? I wasn´t able to recall how often I had pondered over this question in sleepless hours like that. ´He loves you. He´d understand youre only the victim.´, a voice in my head told me, and I didn´t doubt it. But strangely it was exactly the fact that he loved me so much which kept me from saying anything. He had killed once, and I didn´t know whether he would do it again, especially if he saw the need to protect me. Moreover, I didn´t have the slightest idea what Raoul was capable of when facing his rival.
This was no longer the Raoul I had known, neither the boy who had made me laugh in the endless hours of our childhood games nor the man I had fallen in love with. This Raoul had only one aim, and in my opinion it was not getting me back. He wanted to destroy me, to make my life hell. All I hoped was that he didn´t know how close to his goal he had come. I couldn´t even give Erik the love he deserved. He didn´t demand it, he didn´t even ask for it. The problem was that I wanted it, that I wanted him so badly. But as soon as we did anything which went beyond kissing the letters made their way into my mind, and it started: Instead of Erik´s gentle caress I felt Raoul´s hands on my skin, his touch rough and painful, forcing me to act as the letters described it. In these moments I couldn´t help pushing the man I loved away from me, leaving him increasingly confused and me desperate.
Staring up at the pitch black ceiling I made the same decision as always: I wouldn´t tell him, no matter how much I suffered. He would want to protect me in every possible way without thinking about the dangers. I wouldn´t be able to live with the knowledge that I had caused something terrible – I had to protect him from himself. If remaining silent was the price for a quiet life for both of us, I had to pay it. Even when it seemed to poison me from the inside.
Chapter four:
When I left the house the next morning Erik was already gone. That was rather unusual for even if he had some kind of business to do he liked to stay at home at least long enough to wish me a good morning and to tell me how much he loved me. I enjoyed it as much as he did. Sighing about this lonely start of the day I made my way upwards, heading for my dressing room. Today´s first rehearsal would be with the whole ensemble, but fortunately I would not have to wear the new costume. As soon as I had arrived in my room I started changing into one of my normal singer´s clothes. I was in a bit of a hurry, so I only noticed what was lying on the dresser when I was almost out of the room again. It was a new letter. Quickly I grabbed it; I wanted it to be over soon. On the second glance I realised something else: There was no letter, but an empty envelope, nearly torn apart in the haste to open it. And it wasn´t my name on it, either. It was Erik´s.
For a few seconds I stood rooted to the spot, my mind refusing to accept what I had just seen. It didn´t make any sense. Why should Raoul want to write to Erik? He had to be the last person he felt like talking to unless…unless he had had enough of not getting a reaction from me and decided to put him onto the letters. Clutching the envelope tightly I opened the lowest drawer of the dresser, where I had hidden the last couple of them. As they had arrived at unpredictable times it had been too difficult to burn them as I had done with the others. Sometimes it simply had to go quickly. Now all of them had vanished.
My trembling knees gave way, and I sank to the floor. What had happened? Perhaps it would help me if I tried to reconstruct it as far as I could. Apparently Erik had come into my dressing room for some reason and found the letter addressed to him. After reading it he had started looking for other letters, maybe because his had told him about them, maybe on his own account. It seemed that I hadn´t hidden them too well. But what had he done then? Nothing in the room could give me any information about that. I guessed he had gone to Raoul at once, looking for an explanation. I dreaded to think about what they could do to each other, maybe in this very moment.
The urge to find it out, to help made me jump up in feverish energy. On the way to the door, however, the rational part of my mind was in control of the matter again. It wasn´t very likely that I would be able to improve things. Probably my presence would make both men insist on their position even more. Besides, the mere fact that I was on Erik´s side would drive Raoul crazy, maybe even tempt him to do something he´d regret later. There was no way for me to help. I could only wait. Wait and hope.
Chapter five:
If anyone had asked me how exactly I had spent the day, I wouldn´t have been able to give a reply. All I knew was that I had been everywhere I had been supposed to be, doing whatever I had been asked to without taking in a word of it. My mind had been focused on one question: What were they doing? All the time I had waited for a sign that Erik was back. In every break I had rushed to his house, only to find it as deserted as in the morning. Now it was evening, and I had been sitting on the sofa in the living room for more than two hours. My body was completely exhausted from the sleepless night, but I was so concentrated on the only sound I wanted to hear, the door being opened, that I hardly noticed how tired I was.
When it finally happened I sprang up in a state of tense anticipation. Erik entered the room slowly. His face looked grey and much older that usual, the mask shining in a ghostly manner. "Good evening, Christine.", he said in a perfectly calm voice, that showed no trace of another emotion. "Good evening, love.", I replied timidly. "Why don´t you sit down? There is some matter we have to discuss.", he told me, settling himself in an armchair, while I sat down on the sofa´s edge. For a moment neither of us spoke. Then I couldn´t bear the tension any longer. "What did Raoul tell you?", I blurted out.
"Everything.", he said simply. If he was surprised that I had guessed where he had been, he didn´t show it. My heart sank. What did that mean? Changing his sitting position slightly to face me he went on in the same neutral voice: "He told me that you only returned to me because of pity. He told me that you´ve exchanged letters with him all the time, talking about your love. But that´s not the whole story. He also told me that after a while you couldn´t endure being separated from him any longer and started meeting him in secret, carrying out what you had described…" His voice trailed off. Every emotion in my body seemed to be frozen as he talked so matter-of-factly about these appalling lies. "You cannot believe that, Erik.", I whispered faintly.
A warm smile spread across his face. "Of course I don´t.", he assured me, taking my cold, sweaty hand. "I neither believed a word of the insults in the letter he had written me nor that you had actually answered any of these…disgusting things he had sent you." He raised my hand to his lips and placed a light kiss on it. I dared return a shy smile. "Christine, I would have never set a foot in this man´s house if I hadn´t been so worried about you. You probably don´t know it, but you´ve been moaning his name in your sleep for weeks: ´Raoul, don´t!´ ´No, Raoul!´."
"Why didn´t you just ask me?", I wanted to know, totally aware that I wouldn´t have told him the cause anyway. As if he had read my mind he answered: "I didn´t want to force you to do anything you weren´t ready for. I believed you´d come to me as soon as you were.". "But I didn´t!", I said, feeling the guilt rising in my stomach. "That´s why I went to him. In the course of the conversation I understood that the weight you carried was so heavy that you couldn´t simply throw it aside without help. I asked him what he demanded for stopping the threat."
He looked deep into my eyes, and I felt a shiver running down my spine. "He said he´d never leave you in peace.", Erik continued: "That settled it." "That settled what?", I asked, a terrible suspicion creeping up from the back of my mind. He couldn´t have…! "My decision. We´re leaving the Opéra Populaire.", he replied, much too calm for such an important statement. "I´ve arranged everything for us. That´s how I spent the rest of the day. I bought a house in Sweden. I´m sure you´ll like it." By now he sounded even cheerful.
"But Erik…", I said, not quite able to catch up with the sudden change of emotions. "You love the opera…" "I love you.", he whispered, pulling me onto his lap. "Seeing you in this state of mind brought me more pain that you can imagine. All I ever wanted was making you happy. I would leave everything behind for you, Christine." "And he won´t find us?" I wanted to be absolutely sure before I grew accustomed to this wonderful thought. Erik shook his head slightly. "He´ll never find us. It´ll be just you and me." Quite naturally our mouths found each other, and for the first time I was able to enjoy it, feeling nothing but a pleasant tingling in my stomach. At long last our kiss ended. "When are we going?", I asked, still a little breathlessly. "Tonight.", he said, obviously smiling about my eagerness. "Do you think we can make it?" "Sure!", I said, reluctantly slipping from his lap.
Two hours later everything was ready. All our luggage had been stowed away in the coach Erik had hired this afternoon, right after buying the house. Now we stood one last time in front of the huge dark opera house. It had been an important part of my life, but even more so for him. "Won´t you miss it?", I asked quietly, afraid of breaking the silence of the street at night. "How could I miss anything when I´m with you?", he gave back, getting on the coach box and looking down at me. "Would you mind if I sit next to you?" Instead of an answer he offered me his hand, helping me to find a comfortable sitting position. He took off his cloak and wrapped it around both of us. "It´ll be a long journey till we reach the boat that´ll take us to Sweden, and it´s still very cold.", he explained while I rested my head against his shoulder. Slowly the horse started making its way through the deserted streets. How could I think about feeling cold? I was free.
The End