Learn to be Loved
Disclaimer: (n) a denial of legal responsibility; a written statement embodying this.
I do not own these characters. Their original owner is Guy Leroux.
Summary: (n) a brief account of the main points of something.
Based on the ending of the 2004 film, the Phantom learns years later what an astounding gift quiet love can be
Distribution: (n) a distributing or a being distributed; allotment; a thing distributed… as pertaining to commerce: the marketing of goods to customers, their handling, and transport.
Take it and host it, so long as my name stays on it as Author.
Spoiler(s): (n) a projecting structure on an aircraft wing that increases drag - what the...? I'd better use 'to spoil:' (v) to damage as to make useless, etc; to impair the enjoyment of. Or spoilsport: (n) a person who spoils the fun of others.
All of them. Don't bother reading if you're not a fan of Phantom of the Opera, or have never seen/read it.
Rating: (n) an assessment, an evaluation, an appraisal.
Rated 'PG-13: Parental Guidance suggested under 13' just to be on the safe side. .
Feedback: (n) information about a product, service, etc returned to the supplier for purposes of evaluation.
Send all flames, compliments, questions, etc toGAKDragon(at)msn(dot)com Be sure to put "Re: Phantom" as your subject title or my dad might delete it (My Yahoo and MSN addresses catch all my spam, so don't bother trying to send me any).
Author's note: This was inspired by talk and excerpts of Susan Kay's out of print novel Phantom, as well as the very last scene in the movie version, where Raoul visits his wife's grave and gets a shock. After reading Susan Kay's treatment of the details Leroux never told his readers, this story bit and refused to let go. You might notice severe disjointing between plot and characters, as I tried to remain true to the sequence of events as they took place on stage and in movie, but I pulled some characterizations and background information from Susan Kay's book.
PS: As I do not own a copy of the Leroux book and have not read it in 15 years probably, I do not remember if Erik's last name is ever given, nor Madame Giry's first. I've decided to invent one for Madame Giry and use the surname given by the author of Phantom of Manhattan, Frederick Forsythe (also a book I've never read). Since the surname I am using is Germanic in origin (this can be explained, possibly. While Madeleine is 100 French, what do we know of Erik's father Charles?), anyone who finds a better/more accurate last name within the pages of Leroux's book will be my hero forever.
PPS: My little trick of writing the dialogue actually in the foreign languages in which it's spoken is only good for the prologue. The new second chapter is a page of translations. After the Prologue (first chapter), the only foreign ones I use are obvious ones, like Oui for yes and Maman for Mother.
Prologue
Paris, 1919
The train from Prague arrived at the Paris station shortly after noon. It was a dreary day, drizzling every so often with gray clouds threatening more. An old man gripped the railing as he stepped off onto the platform. He readjusted his hat and gazed over the tracks towards the downtown area.
Breathing in French air, which he hadn't smelled since the turn of the century, he looked around for a café. There used to be one around the corner, but that had been years ago. The native walked a little ways down the platform in order to see down a side street.
A woman dressed in high fashion followed the porter carrying her bags. A young lady, very much the woman's daughter or granddaughter, tripped down the steps lightly. The younger woman, dressed in a sheath of Slavic-patterned fabric, looked over to where the baggage handlers were unloading. Seeing that everything was under control, she followed the gentleman.
"Předek!" she called in a foreign tongue.
The old man turned, and waved. "Ano, Nicola?" he asked in the same language when she was a few feet away.
"Co hledáte?" She gazed in the same direction he had, eyes hungering for the new sights of the City of Light.
"Hledající výčep," he replied. "Já jsem vyhladovělý."
She chuckled. "Maminka je užívání si dávající pokyny."
"Pro změnu," he remarked. He grinned suddenly, and put his arm around the young teenager.
She smiled at him expectedly.
"Dovolte nájemné po brougham než se tam dostaneš."
"Jeden brougham? Proč?"
"Humor vaši Dědeček."
She shrugged and allowed herself to be walked back to the baggage car. He discussed his plans with the older woman, who smiled delightedly at the idea. He went to hire a carriage while the ladies checked everything.
The old man felt years younger, standing in the front seat of the horse-drawn carriage. The coach hand had graciously allowed him to take the reigns along the Porte Maillot. The wind felt good in his hair. He urged the horses faster, laughing as they took a turn too close to the curb.
The ladies sitting behind him squealed rather indecorously. He tossed his wife a grin and slowed the horses back to a trot, surrendering control back to their handler.
He put his hat back on his head, pushing it down to fit snugly. When he sat back down, the younger woman leaned forward and slung her arms around his neck. He smiled, patting her wrist.
"Nous sommes presque là, Monsieur," the driver said in French.
The man nodded and replied in kind. "Bon, bon. Merci."
The coach pulled up at the hotel and the old man sprang out. He remembered how old he was when his knee jerked involuntarily. He grabbed onto the carriage to steady himself.
His wife tutted at him. "Je devine vous ne monterez aucune passerelle n'importe quand bientôt, vous?" she asked playfully in French.
He grimaced at her and took his satchel from the floor boards. He ushered them into the hotel lobby to check in.
The porters he'd hired at the train station had dropped their luggage at the hotel, and the concierge called over bellhops to assist them to their suite. The man prompted the younger woman to leave the staff a tip, a task she performed very seriously.
He chuckled at the teenager.
"Dědeček, přestaňte obtěžovat."
"Auf Deutsch, bitte," he said in German, just to be irksome.
She rolled her eyes and replied in French instead. "Pourquoi est-ce que je dois apprendre l'allemand? Je n'ai jamais été, et Je n'irai pas n'importe quand bientôt."
"Bist du sicher? Ich bin dein Großvater. Wohin ich gehe, gehst du."
She pouted and he laughed. He kissed her on the forehead and reassured her in Czech. "Budeme mluvit o teto veci později. Přeměnit něco vyhradit na co ten hřbitov." He indicated her vividly-patterned dress.
She nodded and took her suitcase to her room. He pulled off his gloves long enough to remove an object from a small wooden chest, then put them back on and sat to wait for the women.
The elderly man accepted his chauffeur's help out of the automobile. He began walking through the graves, his feet knowing the path better than his memory did. The chauffeur helped his wife and granddaughter as well.
The women stayed back, as he had asked them to. His black gloves, that protected his ever-more feeble hands, caressed the gift he'd prepared. He found the object of his search, and sank to one knee before the woman's grave.
He touched the picture, tears pricking his eyes as he saw how she'd aged. Well, he had aged, too. He was fast approaching ninety. His face had changed since she saw it last. While the red coloring of the infection that dominated his youth and middle age was still there, time had been a blessing to him. Wrinkles, crow's feet, and smile lines covered the infection's puckering. Time spent in the sun had reduced the severity of the redness. His white, scraggly hair seemed normal now for someone of his age.
He ignored the words engraved below her picture, instead traced the letters of her name. He had fashioned his after hers, in a way. In her honor, he had taken up the name of his old life and added hers to it – the only way he was able to have some part of her in his life.
She was the first woman he'd loved with a fire that went beyond the deep affection of siblings. She was also the first person to see his true face and look upon it without pity, fear, or hate, but instead sorrow – sorrow for him and the wretched existence he'd been forced into.
Bringing the gift to his lips, he kissed it, then carefully placed it beside the tombstone. Erik Christoph stood and said his final goodbyes, then turned away.
His balance faltered slightly, and he supported himself on the marble. His wife darted forwards to his side, her natural grace still there, even at sixty-nine. As she put her left arm around his waist, he smirked. He let go of the tombstone and leaned his big frame on her heavily, pushing. She quickly took a few steps to the side, lest he bring them both down.
He hung in that position – her arms cupped awkwardly under his shoulders, him leaning against her at a slant to the ground, his head pillowed on her chest.
Their granddaughter, Nicola, ran up to help, crying "Předek!"
He turned his face to the side and made snoring noises. His wife rolled her eyes and tried to pull him up. Nicola thwapped him on the arm.
It was a long-running joke born out of brief tragedy. Fifteen years ago, he had suffered from narcolepsy. Aggressive therapy and new medicinal herbs had shut it down, so now he teased his family with it, faking seizures in the most awkward or embarrassing places.
Erik tilted his head and made three or four sucking kisses on his wife's neck. She giggled and pulled her neck away. He stood tall, and turned to Nicola. "Půjdeme?" he asked in Czech.
"Ano."
He held his elbows out, and with a girl on each arm he made his way back to the automobile.
Madame Christoph remarked in French as they drove back, "Il est bon qu'elle ait été heureuse. Elle a eu des enfants."
"Oui," her husband admitted. "Je ne devrais pas être le seul avec une demi-douzaine de petits-enfants. Je suis heureux, dans son intérêt. Sien était un bonheur que je pourrais ne jamais avoir donné."
Nicola, who had studied French in order to converse with her grandparents and great-grandmother, followed the conversation with interest. This was the first time she'd heard her guardians speak of Erik's old love. She knew his life in Paris had been dark and lonely, but she had never asked about it. She was old enough now, she felt.
"Dědeček," she asked in Czech, "kdo byla ona?"
He looked startled for a moment, and her grandmother took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. He looked over at her, then back to their ward.
"Ona byla jeden baletka ve baletní sbor," he began, "právě jako vaši babička."
"Nepodobný já," his wife interjected, "ona měl ten nejkrásnější hlasový v Opéra Populaire."
"Její vyjmenovat byla Christine Daae," her grandfather continued, "a ona stávat se životní na opera po její otec zanikl…"
He told her the story then: of the popular ingénue everyone loved; the diva they didn't; the new owners and their patron; the fire that destroyed the company; and finally the Opera Ghost, whose musical genius went unnoticed in the wake of his madness and obsession over the ingénue's heart and mind.
Erik could see her eyes widen. She was transfixed, hanging on every word he gave about the love triangle. It had been the same way with her mother, Christina. He also knew his wife would not be satisfied until he lad out the gruesome truth: The Phantom had been a murderer and he'd forced his student to make a terrible decision between life with a monster or her lover's death.
"Ona vybral ten Fantóm, že ano?" she asked, a hopeless romantic.
"Dovolil svém jít," he admitted, more than little surprised by her sensibilities. Her mother had been the same way. His dear, devoted daughter, who'd followed the path of her namesake almost completely. She had been taught music by her father, practically grew up in the Opera House dormitories where her mother was a dancer, debuted on the stage at a sinfully young age, and found love just as she was becoming a star.
But Christina Christoph's love was a violinist in the orchestra. It was "A match made in heaven by the Angel of Music," people said humorously, most of them ignorant of the title Erik Christoph had once used.
Anton Weber loved music, and he couldn't dream of giving it up just because he was getting married. He'd insisted that Christina should make her choice of whatever made her happy. He had not tried to hide his wish to keep the first chair in the pit, and subsequently Christina had stayed with her career, raising a family on the side with the help of her immensely proud parents.
Then they had been killed.
It was a terrible carriage accident, both horses having to be put down and the weight of the box itself crushing the two musicians. Their son, Jaromir, was already betrothed, so his grandfather extended a loan that would allow him to marry and support his wife sooner than they had planned. Jaromir had already repaid it, and Erik looked forward to meeting his and Illya's first child, Franz.
Nicola was too young to live on her own, so her grandparents took her in. She learned in much the same way as her mother, but she did her great-grandmother (and namesake) proud. She wanted to be the star of a ballet company.
Erik indulged her passions, finding a sort of half-peace in the more technical, subdued forefather of opera's dancing style. And of course, musicians were much less likely to ruin his music with their instruments than singers were with their inferior voices.
At the end of his tale, Nicola on the edge of her seat, his last words seemed to echo in the carriage: "Ten Fantóm nikdy se nevrátil se do Opéra Populaire. A on už nikdy ne-vstoupil Paříž."
His wife patted his knee. "Jusqu'ici, cher," she remarked in French. "Jusqu'ici."
They pulled up to their hotel and were assisted out. Erik turned and looked down the street in the general direction of the Opera House.
Mme. Christoph noticed his gaze and said, "L'enchère est aujourd'hui." She ended on an open note, not sure if he wanted to go.
"Votre mère est là," he replied simply.
She nodded, and they headed up to the hotel suite.
Erik took their shawls and coats and hung them in the closet, then dropped his hat and gloves on a table. Mme. Christoph went to lie down. Nicola grabbed his hand and pulled him around to the settee. Forcing him to sit, she flounced down next to him, tucking her legs underneath her.
"Dites maintenant moi le reste de lui," she demanded in French.
He blinked at her. "Le reste?"
"Qu'est arrivé au fantôme? Où est-il allé s'il ne revenait jamais à Paris? La femme qu'il a aimée a eu une vie de bonheur et de longueur avec un autre homme. Et lui?"