For my husband, on our anniversary
Prologue: Resurrection
Rain slapped the cobblestones and snaked through the gutters in filthy rivulets. Under the dreary downpour, the black waters of the Seine boiled. Récipon's bronze nymphs, with their regal crowns and tranquil countenances, watched from their perch astride the Pont Alexandre III bridge as the tormented current fled far beneath their feet. The anguished whispers of the storm flooded the empty streets.
Along the river's steep banks, where the fresh rain could not flush away the river's thick, green smell, refuse tipped and floated as it caught in the water weeds. Yellowed newspapers and muddied scraps and rags clung to the banks and covered the water's edge. Among the garbage, an opera mask of black silk glittered with the weak moonlight.
Gradually the rhythm of a horse's somber march drowned out the sounds of the storm as a cab crawled through the darkness. Both the grey mare and black carriage glistened with cold droplets of heavy rain. The driver huddled in his cloak and swung his lantern right and left, throwing long, twisted shadows from the skeleton trees that grew along the Seine. His eyes strained against the gloom, searching for a sign of hope.
A sudden shout from within the cab made the driver pull hard on the reigns. Before the carriage had stopped, its passenger flew out of the cab to the banks of the river. As the driver followed with the lantern, the mysterious passenger sought with his strange, jade eyes the object he had seen sparkling in the water.
Having spied the mask, he carefully descended the bank and stepped into the refuse. But when he tried to lift the mask, he was alarmed to find that something weighed it down. Barking orders to the driver in a foreign tongue and plunging mid-calf into the clinging grime, he raised the bulk beneath the mask.
The water fell away, revealing a human body.
Frantically, the two men heaved the body out of the river and dragged it up to the street. After shouting in his strange language for the driver to retrieve necessities from the cab, the man with the jade eyes knelt on the wet pavement and removed the mask. He pried his fingers between the fetid lips of what was undeniably an old corpse and opened the mouth, exposing fresh air to the body's sodden lungs. As he turned the corpse on its side and shook it as if to awaken the dead man from his eternal slumber, he whispered with despair.
Miraculously, the corpse came alive, its mouth a gaping hole gasping for the damp night air. The resurrected man suddenly gagged and vomited the muddy river onto the street, along with a sour stench. With a groan, he rolled onto his back and passed into an exhausted faint. The rescuer closed his jade eyes and sent silent thanks to Heaven for having found the man alive. He quickly replaced the mask before the driver returned with a heavy blanket from the cab. They wrapped the blanket around the fainted man and carried him through the downpour to the carriage.
The man with the jade eyes, who was known only as The Persian, sat in his apartment beside the bed of the rescued man. With a towering, slim frame, defined muscles, and tan skin, the Persian's appearance masked his sixty years. Very little was known about him, and even less was known about his companion whom he had dragged from the river. In fact, only the Persian knew the man's real name. Others called him the Opera Ghost—the Phantom of the Opera.
With a clean, dry towel, the Persian wiped the mud from the man's arms and around the edge of his masked face. A lively fire in the hearth warmed the room while the patter of rain on the window glass was like so many pearls falling from a broken necklace. Slowly his ward's hollow eyes flitted open, focusing immediately on those of his rescuer.
"Daroga…" the man muttered, using the Persian's other nickname.
The Persian smiled. "We found you only moments ago, Erik. You nearly drowned."
"Why… Why did you come for me?"
"I never expected you to send me your possessions as we had discussed months ago. But when the package arrived, I guessed that you planned some dreadful end for yourself. My servant and I set out immediately and searched the entire Paris Opera, and then a quarter of Paris itself to find you."
Erik lifted himself from the Persian's saffron pillows and propped his elbows beside him for support. "You published the message?"
"I did as promised. Tomorrow, the newspaper will announce your death."
Erik scoffed. "Interfering in my plans was not a part of your promise." He winced from a sudden headache and sank back onto the bed.
The Persian dropped the towel onto the bedside table with a sigh. Clearly Erik was regaining his strength, if his sarcasm were any indication. He rose from his post by the bed and walked to the hearth, where the air was warmer than around the Death that lay in his bed. "I confess I care for you too deeply, my friend. I couldn't let you take your own life... It's not the first time that I've rescued you. I wouldn't have had to leave my homeland and come to this dismal country if not for that I had already saved your life once before. For that, I could be executed if I ever return to Persia. And to let all that be for nothing, to allow you to expire at your own hands?"
Erik turned to lie on his side, his back to the Persian. "But how could you have known of my plans?"
"I know you too well."
For a long moment, he was silent, and the Persian began to think that he had fallen asleep. A gust of wind outside rattled the window frame. Then Erik spoke, softly and deliberately, as if the subject of conversation had taken from him what little strength he had regained. "From the Pont Alexandre III, I climbed a post until I touched the golden wings of a statue of Pegasus, then threw myself from that lofty perch into the river. And somehow, in the abandonment of hope is perverse liberation … As my feet left the cold stone, Daroga, I felt the heavy chains around my heart finally release me. The curse that had plagued me—that is, my life—was ending at last. It was my only prospect for eliminating my pain, the one moment I felt truly at peace…" Erik turned on the bed. His teary, golden eyes bore into the Persian's like a child looking into the face of the man who stole his only sou. "Could you truly know me well enough to understand what you've just taken from me?"
The Persian turned from that burning stare to watch the dancing flames of the fire. "Shall I confess my own sad stories, the secrets of my youth, to prove to you I understand? I know all too well, Erik. I even know that at first you could never part with those trinkets you sent me, but then in the end you couldn't bear even the sight of them, their memories too dear! Sending them to me to be rid of them gave you a morbid idea: a way to end your misery!"
Erik trembled, overwhelmed with remorse. "It is as you have said. One particular recollection incessantly torments me… My thoughts always return, uncontrollably, to the moment Christine gave me her shoe ribbon… which I sent to you with her other things. It was while she was staying with me… I think I had played the harp while we sang, and we had sung all afternoon. But even though the harp strings blistered my fingers, I kept on because… Whenever her singing stopped for the night, it was as if I had awakened from a dear dream and had returned to my living nightmare! So I kept playing and we continued singing until I saw that she became fatigued. I came towards her and she cried out… I thought, 'Of course, the idea of being so close to me must terrify her.' But then she pointed to my fingers and explained that one of them was blistered terribly and had begun to bleed. I didn't feel any pain, Daroga, I only knew that my sweet girl was concerned for me and it was like an unimaginable dream. And she sought to bandage my finger with her precious ribbon!… My fingers, the fingers of a corpse!…" He lifted his right hand and extended his index finger to demonstrate, as if the feminine bandages were still wrapped around his limb. "She trembled a little as she wound the pearly satin and tied it in a petite knot, but she was concerned for me!"
The Persian said nothing as he listened to Erik's tale, but closed his jade eyes as the fire's warmth seeped into his bones.
"And it was all a lie!" he spat, shaking his head. "It was not the concern one shows a lover, but only the manner in which a gentle girl worries over a damaged forest creature! How naïve I was!…But it isn't her fault, Daroga. I can't blame her for being a gentle girl worried over a wretched forest creature… It's my heart, Daroga… Rather than accept the truth, it only believed what it wanted…. That ribbon taunted me, playing my desires, tying me to the shredded threads of hope by the maddening 'maybe.'" He sighed as he pronounced that plaguing word, and wrung the hem of the Persian's crisp linen sheets. "I exhausted myself anticipating her return, trying desperately to believe that she had left her shoe ribbon with me as a token of her undying love and that she would come for me. Don't you understand, Daroga? My happiness exists only in the fantasies of my imagination! Am I to continue in this despair until my heartless Maker grants my demise? Surely someone such as I has the right to make an end of it. It was selfish of you to seize me from my escape and return me to my suffering!"
The Persian turned from the fireplace to frown at his companion. "My friend, by whatever name you call heaven, I saved you because I'm concerned for your salvation!" Erik rolled his golden eyes. "Surely you know that suicide will close to you the gates of Paradise forever!"
"It hardly matters now! Those gates are locked against me, 'Monsieur.' I've seen no evidence of Heaven's existence—Rather, I know what fate awaits me! For me there is only more torment in the life to come, but then at least I will be among those as wretched as myself. I'll no longer be an outcast!"
"Astaghfirallah!" The Persian raised his eyes and arms to heaven.
Erik's hollow eyes widened. "Why are you shouting at me? I'm too weak for this reproach!"
"Because you refuse to listen to reason! I've risked my life for you! It pains me to see you in such sorrow. Please, calm yourself and think rationally! My friend, you've created such marvelous inventions and compositions—" he ignored Erik's scoffing remarks "—and you're still alive, so there is more to be done! Relief will come in time, dear friend. Please, just be patient."
A knock sounded gently at the bedroom door, and the Persian opened it to his servant carrying a tray that brought with it the frangrant scent of springtime. "Here is Darius with your Mazenderan tea. Rest awhile, and we will talk more when your faculties return."
Erik took the cup and saucer from the timid servant. "I'll thank you not to burden me with your pious sermons. I'm not interested in your religion's opinion of my existence."
The Persian pursed his lips and left the room.
Before dawn the following morning, Darius entered the Persian's bedchamber with a basin of water for their ablutions for the early morning prayer. He set the basin on the bedside table and wakened his master. As the Persian rose and rubbed his tired eyes, Darius informed him that their guest was missing. Hearing his servant's startling news, the Persian ran to the guest room. The room where Erik had slept was in immaculate order: the linens were folded on the bed and the unsightly wet clothes and blanket from the previous night were gone.
But Erik was also missing.
Where did he go, and in what condition? The Persian had no doubt that his friend was suffering extreme despair, for which any man would understandably wish for solitude. But the Persian feared that Erik would again try to take his life, or—more horrendous and unthinkable—he would kill himself in such a vengeful glory as to take with him the lives of innocents! He had already threatened such an unconscionable deed once before. The Persian set out immediately with Darius to hunt for his friend.
The quiet daybreak echoed their every footstep as they searched the Rue Rivoli and the surrounding streets. The rain had transformed into a thick fog, through which the ruins of the Tuileries loomed like shadowy carcasses in a smoky battlefield. Shivering in the frigid air, the Persian and his servant realized almost at once that, with their vision limited by the weather, it would be impossible to find anyone—especially someone who didn't wish to be found. They retired to the apartment, but the Persian's mind would not rest.
He had saved the life of his friend once before, in his own country. Then he had followed Erik to Paris and witnessed a terrible unfolding of events as the monster had tried to win the affection of the opera signer Christine Daaé—through the murder of men and the near destruction of the Paris Opera!
Since birth, Erik wore a mask to hide his terrifying ugliness. Those whom his face had frightened had reacted with incredible cruelty. His appearance prevented him from living as other men, and the isolation had driven him to near insanity. Now it seemed that the last strands of Erik's self-control had unraveled. Unless the Hand of Mercy intervened, the Persian was certain that Paris would again face terrifying destruction if he didn't find his friend in time.