Christine
It has been three months since I have heard Erik's voice. Three months, and I am wretched. It is the night before the Bal Masque. Meg is chattering endlessly in excitement, but all I feel is anxiety.
At first I was relieved, I admit. To find out he had lied to me and made a fool of me all those months in such a jarring manner, and, directly after that, the shock of another deceit-that face! Ghastly, but made worse contorted by rage. The deranged way he had spoken to me! Cursing me in one instant, then confessing his love in the next. Then immediately returning our relationship to that of a tutor and student, as if the scene in his home had not happened at all. He refused to answer any of my questions or listen to my apologies. Instead, he rehearsed me like a tyrant in Margarita's part, though he knew Carlotta had sang the entire run until this, the closing performance.
And then, wonder of wonders, Carlotta grew ill before the performance and I was allowed to sing Margarita. I was afraid when I stepped onto the boards, but as the music began I could feel Erik's presence and the notes came out light as air, the expressiveness Erik had unraveled in me spinning out into transcendence. The love duet Oui, c'est toi que j'aime, was tender and passionate, as we had practiced it together, and in the final trio I felt that I really was Margarita, seeing heaven.
The crowd applauded and cried out for an encore, but I ran to my little dressing room, wanting nothing more to share my triumph with Erik. But, he was not there.
After my performance, Raoul had taken me to Des Georges. We drank champagne and ate oysters. I was feted and praised to the skies and, I will admit, it turned my head a bit. I was also angry at Erik, who seemed to have disappeared into the ether, leaving me with no guidance and no friend. If he wished to act like a child, I would ignore him and enjoy the month's break with a man who wished my company.
I most definitely did not want to see Erik again.
Of course I wanted to see Erik again, if only so that I could reproach him for his behavior.
The company was on hiatus all of September but, as summer gave way to fall, returned to begin rehearsal for the new year's production, which would be announced to the public at the Bal Masque. I was delighted to have won a small role. Given how his tutelage has guided my career so far, I had expected Erik to appear near this time, either to advance me as the Opera Ghost, or to help me to rehearse.
I went to the dressing room and stood before the mirror at our usual time, but he did not appear.
As the weeks went by, I grew worried. Had something happened to him, alone in his home? Had he done himself some harm?
And then horror! — Buquet's body discovered, drowned and with a noose around its neck. Erik had killed a man and in my terror, I accepted Raoul's proposal of marriage. Even now, as I laid in my bed staring into the darkness, I clutch the ring which Raoul had given me. I wear the ring on a golden chain, a secret engagement, I told Raoul. Tomorrow is the Bal Masque. And directly after that, opening night. I intend to perform for the season, whatever I have promised Raoul. I have already practiced my part on my own and with the company. The Angel has given me many gifts and I trust that his training will hold and that I will sing beautifully. It is not his tutelage I need, but-
Stop, I tell myself, but the thoughts chase themselves endlessly around my head.
This long silence does not sit well with me. Erik and I were friends once. I cannot bear that we should part on such bad terms.
It is near midnight when I slip out. I can hear Meg's even breathing in the bed across from my own as I slide out from under the covers. I shrug on a dressing gown and slippers, slipping into the dark hallway. Madame Giry's door is closed and I tiptoe past and hurry across the tiny sitting room. The apartment door is usually locked, but I have the key in my pocket and so slide it carefully open, trying my best to make no sound, and lock it behind me.
I have had an idea, a thought driven by my desperation and guilt.
If he will not come to me, then I will go to him.
I creep down the narrow staircases and dark hallways, feeling along by touch slowly but surely to our dressing room. I am intensely aware of the idea that he made be watching me, even now, from some hidden alcove or dark corner. I push the thought away even as I push the door of the dressing room open, and approach the large mirror affixed to the far wall. There is a catch on the side of the mirror, just above my head. I had discovered it a few days ago and have spent the last few nights screwing up my courage. Now, I take a candleholder from the bureau and light the stubby candle inside, holding it aloft as I press the catch. The mirror slides to the side, revealing a narrow gap. I step through it into the dark passageway behind, holding my little candle aloft.
I am afraid. I do not want to shut the mirror and risk being trapped in this cold and narrow space. The fear is silly; there is a bend in the corridor just a few feet away, and it continues to a set of stone steps. It has been months since the Angel of Music had taken my hand and led me down into his world, and yet I remember the way clearly. I take a deep breath and close the panel. My little light wavers nauseatingly, but it does not go out. With some relief, I brush my hand against the rough-hewn wall and walk forward. Yes, here is the staircase, and here the place where Erik lifted me onto a white horse. The boat is moored near the small lake, just as I remember it.
Erik has obligingly left a lantern on the bow of the small boat. I light it, shuttering the light so that I am not blinded, and clamber aboard. My father and I used to spend months by the seaside, and I know how to sail and how to row. However, the gondolier's pole is difficult to manipulate, and my back and shoulders are soon aching as I laboriously push the pole to the bottom of the shallow lake and across the dark water towards where I know that Erik's house is. The niggling fear that something has happened to him, that he may be lying dead even now in his house, grips me. I push the thought away, only to have another moment of panic where I think, Surely I've gone too far, perhaps I have missed it? Then, the portcullis rises, dripping water and trailing long ropes of seaweed. The boat bumps gently against the stone jetty and I secure the gondolier's pole and then tie up the boat as my father taught me to do, before glancing around with some trepidation.
His strange house is much as I remember it, that disastrous time I was last here. To my right is a large painted swan, a prop used in some opera long ago, made over into a bed. To my left, a settee and two chairs sitting comfortably in from of a fireplace. Behind it, steps leading up to a magnificent pipe organ. My eyes dart about, taking in everything before I slump, relieved.
He is not dead.
He is, in fact, not here.
I had not considered that possibility, though now that I think on it, it seems obvious that if the boat is on the Opera side of the lake, he must be as well. I sigh in frustration, and ascend the steps to the organ, thinking to sit and wait for him. On the organ lay a thick stack of sheet music, tied up with a wide black ribbon. The ink on the first page is just sanded and still drying. Erik must have been here very recently if the ink is still wet.
I pick up the sheet of thick, cream-colored paper, reading the title: Don Juan Triumphant. His masterwork, which he said he had been working on for decades, now completed.
I cannot contain my curiosity, though I know very well what it got me the last time I stood here. Still, I glance around nervously to assure myself that I really am alone and untie the black ribbon, setting the title page aside with a care for the wet ink. I scan the first page—no prelude, it opens daringly on an aria, where Don Juan mocks the very idea of love. I leaf through the rest of the score, reading some parts over quickly, pausing to hum the melody of others.
The music is amazing and horrible. It is not an opera-not in any traditional sense of the word. It is written in the modern verismo style, but it has no recitative and no exposition. Instead, it explodes onto the senses from the first phrase and carries the listener through every conceivable emotion: bitterness, anger, sorrow, lust, rage…and love. Love so sweet that the expression of it takes my breath away.
I eagerly work through the second act, my hands trembling at the raw emotions I can feel even from my cursory reading of the score, until I finally come to the finale—a duet sung by Don Juan and Aminta, when she defends the concept of love. They sing together, and then it just…ends. Their story is unfinished. Does Don Juan seduce the girl, as he has so many others? Or is he convinced by Aminta's passion to leave his bitterness behind? The ambiguity of the ending is as unsettling as the music.
As the composer himself, who has signed his name on the last page.
I stare at the word, tracing the spiky black letters with my forefinger. The ink is thick on the initial E, as if Erik had hesitated too long over it and almost blotted the page. The rest of the word is in his scrawling hand-spare and black. Defiant.
I remember his words from the last time I was in his house, "I am neither an angel, not a ghost, not a genius. I am Erik."
And then he sang, and after that—disaster.
I have never called him by his name. Certainly not then, when he ranted and cursed at me. And not afterwards, when he had pulled the angelic mantle back around him. I called his Maestro or Angel. But never this. Never Erik. It seems ridiculous to me, unthinkable that I have known him for so long and never actually said his name aloud. I speak the name now, elongating the syllables and drawing it out, fitting it to the man I know. The demanding but brilliant tutor, and the deformed man who hides in a cellar beneath the Opera House.
A tremor runs through me. His name dies on my lips. I am suddenly and keenly aware that I have come here for no purpose except that I am angry that he has been avoiding me for so long. As if the ring on its chain is not reason enough for him to do so!
Somehow, I have made myself believe that, if I do not put the ring on my finger, I am faithful to them both. Cruel, fickle Christine!
I hang my head, feeling utterly foolish. I have denied the truth since the night I saw his face, but the wall shutting it from my consciousness abruptly collapses, leaving me unmoored.
Erik loves me. He loves me still. The proof of it lives and breathes in his music.
Of course, he loves me. Has not made it plain? Did he not reveal himself to me as a man? Had he not sung to me rapturously, holding me in the cradle of his arms until I fell asleep? And had I not repay his tenderness with painful humiliation when I woke?
The weight of guilt come crashing down upon me, a guilt I have tried so very hard to ignore. I feel a strong urge, then, to leave. I am not ready for a confrontation with him. I whirl and find Erik is standing behind me, only a few feet away. I gasp and stumble back a few steps in surprise. The libretto goes tumbling down to the floor between us, bursting open and scattering pages everywhere.
Erik
I narrow my eyes, looking at the place where my boat should have been moored. Someone has taken it across the lake. Another meddler like Buquet, perhaps. Or a ballet rat on a dare. Or Christine, my treacherous heart adds, but I ignore it. Whoever has come, I can deal with them in the same fashion as I had that prying stagehand.
I pat the coiled lasso in my pocket, contemplating death.
I have decided that forty-three years upon this earth is quite enough. I have decided the time and place and have tonight secured the means of my death. Soon, I will unveil my masterpiece to the world, and then I will be plagued by my yawning, humiliating, impossible love no longer.
As I am to die soon, it does not much matter to me if I send more souls down to greet me in hell. Only one person is safe from my wrath, and she is ensconced safely above. There are many ways into my home, hidden ways that only I know. I skirt the edge of the lake and enter from a hidden door, set into a shadowed recess behind my pipe organ. The thick carpeting cushioned any sound I might have made, and I crouch in the darkness, readying the lasso. I slowly emerge from the rock face that makes up one wall of my home.
Her back is to me, but I know the swan-like grace of Christine's neck as she looks at something in her hands. She is here. Here!
Christine here, in my home, clad in her dressing gown and slippers, her sweet, dark head bent over my Don Juan Triumphant. Oh, foolish, curious child to subject herself to that dark music! I feel an urge to rip it from her, to save her sanity from the maelstrom of my own madness. However, some other impulse stops me. I listen as she hums a snatch of the finale, her genius shading tone and meaning into Aminta's refrain.
I wonder how those words affect her, innocent as she is. Do they stir her as they do me? Does she realize who they are meant for?
I cannot help myself. I slide further from the shadows and approach her from behind. I move silently, until I am standing so close that I can smell the floral scent in her dark hair, faint and heady. Her riotous curls are braided back from her temples, the rest of it worn long and loose down her back. I know that her hair is soft, remembering a time months ago when she allowed her head to rest upon my shoulder as I sang to her.
I am foolishly transfixed by the memory and Christine turns, spying me quite near her and gasps. The manuscript falls to the floor, pages coming loose between us Even painted in shock, seeing her face is like a bolt through my heart. Oh, how I love her!
"Erik," she whispers.
It is the sound of my name on her lips that undoes me. All my righteous anger and misery drains away and I grasp her by the shoulders. I do not embrace her. I cannot stand to think of her revulsion if I should do so, but still my bare fingers are clasped around her slight shoulders, clad in a tatty, thin dressing gown. Touching her is like plunging into cold water, the shock of her warm, slight frame so close to my own. I feel it in every fiber of my being, a longing so intense that it has driven me mad. I will truly die of love for her, I think. She does not try to break my hold on her; indeed, she presses more closely, her forehead coming to rest over my heart for just a moment.
In that moment, I would be happy to die and leave her behind to carry on my music. Had she not taken up with the Vicomte I would do it, gladly, here and now. But a Vicomte would never allow his wife to perform before strangers, and so Christine has not betrayed me alone, but her music and herself.
With an effort, I wrench myself away from her. She is staring at me, her breath coming in quick exhalations.
"You have been busy," she says, gesturing at the pages fallen all around us. She makes no effort to pick them up; she keeps her eyes on my every movement. Is she truly so afraid of me? I think.
But of course she was. How could she not be?
Still, I cannot keep myself from asking. "What did you think of it?"
She studies me silently for a few moments, and I realize how very important her approval has become to me. Fool! There is some secret knowledge in her eyes, and I feel a bolt of fear. I have hidden myself so long in darkness that I feel suddenly, horribly exposed by my music. For surely she can read everything in the roughly-scribbled notes—all my monstrous love for her.
"It is unlike anything I've ever heard," she says finally.
A silence yawns between us, the months we have not spoken taking their toll. I have stayed away, just as a living man would. I have given her freedom and let her bathe in the light of the world above, where she can be adored and accoladed as she deserves. I've become what Antoinette has always enjoined me to be—a gentleman.
She elaborates, "It is brilliant, Erik."
The use of my name again makes me flush with pleasure. I try to stifle it, to draw my rage to me- she does not love you, you imbecile! - but I cannot. She disarms me, as she has always done, with only a few words. I am a dog at her feet again.
I step back, trying to clear my head, to speak sense.
"Why are you here?" I ask. "Why aren't you with your charming boy?"
She cannot miss the venom in my voice and she hangs her head guiltily. The bright golden chain shines around her neck and I know what she hides at the end of it.
"You were gone for so long, and I - I was concerned."
I stare at her. "You were concerned?" The anger that I had been counting on finally erupts. "You were concerned for me? Tell me, my dear, was it your concern for me that had you describing me to your precious Vicomte? Distorted, deformed, didn't you say, Christine?" I step closer to hiss, "You claimed to be terrified of me, terrified that I would kill you, do you not remember that, Christine?"
I do not give her time to answer. All my pain and rage finally spill out into the light. I had captured most of it in Don Juan, but the residue was enough to destroy any tender feeling she might have for me. For a wild moment, I even welcome that destruction. Let her hate me. At least that is something.
I advance on her, pin her against the organ with my greater height, lean over her. "I am shocked that you would return to the place that you hate so! Or did you think that perhaps I hadn't heard you? Oh yes, you did, didn't you? You thought that you could come back here and deceive me into molding your voice again?"
"N-no," she stutters, but I am beyond hearing her.
"Oh, heartless Christine! To ignore your Angel for all these months, and then to come back here wearing another man's ring!"
"I'm sorry," she whispers, close to tears.
"NO!" I roar. "Do not tell me you are sorry! Or, take off my mask, and look me in the face, and tell me you're sorry." The idea grips me, a fresh insanity. "Go on!" I seize her hands, "Take off my mask, my dear. Let me see that you mean it."
She straightens, wrenching her hands out of my grip and tilting her face up to mine. "Do you think it's because of your face that I said those things? Do you truly think me so shallow?" Her eyes are suddenly blazing. "It was your rage that frightened me, not your face! And I was right to fear you, was I not? You killed."
Ah, so she knows about Buquet, then.
I am suddenly aware of how close we are standing. I am crowding her against the organ, her dressing gown brushing my legs and both of us carelessly treading on the opera that I had labored over for so long. Her words wound me, but I cannot deny that they are true. I have killed. So many people. More than she knows, more than I will ever tell her. And none have I cared about, none have I felt any guilt over.
I truly am a monster, I think in disgust.
I cannot meet her eyes. I move to step away but both her hands shoot out and clamp onto my wrists, holding me tightly. "These are the hands that killed Joseph Buquet," she says evenly. "These! How could I not fear you? How could I do anything but run away?"
I sag from the weight of her words, and my own sorrow.
"Oh, Christine..." I whisper in despair. Surely this is the end, I think. Surely now I can die.
Christine
"Why are you here?"
Erik's hands are at his side, tightening into fists as he stares at me. A black mask covers his entire face from forehead to chin, but his eyes look wild. I feel a bit of trepidation.
"You were gone for so long and I - I was concerned," I confess.
"You were concerned?" he repeats, incredulously. He barks an angry laugh. He advances on me, shouting accusations, throwing into my face his knowledge of what occurred between Raoul and I on the rooftop. Of the unkind things I had said in fear and anger at him for betraying me so. Angry at myself, really, for being simple enough to believe him; Angel of Music indeed.
But who was the betrayer? Had I not torn off his mask, hurting and humiliating him?
I feel myself begin to tremble.
I know what it is to be ignored, to be abandoned. I had pulled despair around me like a cloak, letting it isolate me from everyone and everything. For years, I laid in my cold bed in the Conservatoire's dormitories, and later in the room I shared with Meg in Madame Giry's apartment, longing for a friend. A confidant to tell my secrets to. Someone who would listen and not think me odd, as Meg did, or disapprove of me, the way that Madame Giry did.
And then, I heard his voice and it was like the secret wish of my heart had suddenly been granted. I wanted so badly to believe that my father's love for me could close the distance between heaven and Earth. That anyone could love Christine Daae like that. The Angel had been my only friend and the transformation it wrought in me was massive, forcing back the despair that stifled my music and replacing it with emotions too deep to bear. I wonder if he felt the same—alone for so long and then suddenly, not. It must have been a bewildering change for a man such as himself.
I feel terribly sorry for him, then.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, feeling tears standing in my eyes.
"No!" He roars, enraged by my pity. "Do not tell me you are sorry! Or, take off my mask, and look me in the face, and tell me you're sorry. Go on!" He seizes my hands, "Take off my mask, my dear. Let me see that you mean it."
"Do you think it's because of your face that I said those things?" I rejoin hotly. "Do you truly think that I am so shallow? It was your rage that frightened me, not your face!"
I am shouting at him now, pouring out my own hurt and anger, my own sense of betrayal. "And I was right to fear you, was I not? You killed!" He rears back from me, but I seize his hands, holding them up so that he can see them. "These are the hands that killed Joseph Buquet. These! How could I not fear you? How could I do anything but run away?"
Erik is staring at me in shock. I do not think he expected this of me. I certainly did not expect it of myself. Oh Erik, you have unleashed all the emotions of which my heart is capable, both good and bad, I think. The numbness that has suffocated me since my father's death is lifting and, for the first time, I feel that I am truly Christine—not a lost child, but a woman.
I suck in a breath and open my mouth to speak, but Erik sinks to his knees before I can say anything, moaning, "Oh, Christine..."
He clings to my knees, then, confessing how he had planned to stage his opera and take Piangi's place, how he had planned to kidnap me and force me to choose between him and 'my boy'.
"Oh, Erik," I say, "Oh, my poor, lost Angel."
He weeps harder at that. His agitation cuts me to the heart. I reach out and lay a hand on his sparse greying hair, carding through it like a mother for a child. My hands are shaking, I realize, and there are tears streaming down my cheeks. I cannot tell what I am feeling. It is all too much. I want to push him away and clutch him close at the same time. I do not move at all, just stand trembling as he heaves wracking sobs that tear my heart further and further open.
Eventually, Erik quiets. He sits back on his heels and mutters an apology. He does not meet my eyes. Instead, he takes a handkerchief from his coat pocket and lifts the mask a bit to swipe at his face. For some reason, this action moves me. I puff out an exhalation and take his wrist in my trembling hand, pulling the mask away from his face completely. His eyes meet mine for a moment in shock, his naked face completely exposed to me.
He is ugly; there is no other way to describe him. What had he called himself? A loathsome gargoyle? And so he seems—a gargoyle, a monster, a face from a nightmare, crafted by hell itself. Death, incarnate.
And yet.
This time is nothing like the last, when I was surprised and terrified, when he ranted and cursed me and swore he would never let me go. Then, the only thing I could think of was to return the mask that I had so cruelly taken from him. Now, he merely looks at me—watching me watch him, scanning my face for signs of fear or disgust.
He seems surprised by whatever he sees in my expression; his features are distorted, but yes, I am sure I can read surprise on his face. He draws in a deep, shaking breath and lets it out, bowing his head.
"Go, Christine," he says, turning his face away. "Go and marry your boy. I am unworthy of you."
I do not know what to say.
A part of me wants to reach out and comfort him as I had just done. Cruel, to give him false hope when I have already agreed to marry Raoul. But still, the urge is so strong that my hands come forward of their own accord and hesitate a few inches from his sunken cheeks. A swell of anticipation rolls through me and, beneath it, a gnawing hunger that terrifies me. Some primordial part of me cries out for me to flee.
I pull my hands back and clasp them firmly behind me.
Erik is silent, his offer of freedom hanging in the air between us. I should take it. I know that. Any decent girl would go, now, and never look back. Then again, I think wryly, No decent girl would be in a man's home in nothing but her shift and dressing gown at this hour, either. The reality of the situation sets in quite suddenly. That Erik is a man, and not an Angel, and that I have spent a night in his home. That even now, when I am engaged to another man, I've pursued him and trespassed and pried into his personal papers. I have called on him at night and in a state of undress!
My behavior is shocking, seen in this light. What on earth could he think of me?
I am shaken from my stupor.
"Your music," I whisper in a strangled voice and kneel to gather up the papers I had carelessly scattered. I see a flurry of movement from him and, when he begins to help me, piling sheet music into my hands.
He leans to the side to collect the last pages, extending his arm and holding the sheets out to me as if I am a wild animal. I cannot help but meet his eyes, a blush staining my cheeks. I snatch the pages from him, careful that our hands do not touch, my heart whispering Danger, danger, danger.
"I should go." My voice sounds thin and plaintive to my own ears. I look down at the pile of papers in my lap and shuffle them into a neat stack. The constant drumbeat of danger forces me to stand, trying to make the action seem casual and not at all about my need to get away from him before something—I knew not what I fear—happens. I wander a few steps away, putting the pipe organ between us, and he speaks.
"Come. I will take you back above."
Erik is standing, facing me. The mask is back. I can see nothing of his expression, but his hands are clenched into fists at his sides. With a start, I realized that his hands are bare. I have not seen his bare hands before; not any part of him really, except his face. My eyes find the nautilus shape of his long, pale fingers curving into his palm suddenly fascinating. It take a moment for his words to register.
"No!" I cry, overcome with the idea of his taking my hand with his bare fingers pressing mine, of him lifting me onto horseback, of his body close to mine in the dark, narrow passageways. "There is no need for that," I croak out. "I came down on my own, after all."
He acquiesces too easily, insisting only that he do the strenuous work of navigating the boat across the lake. This seemed a sensible compromise and I quickly accept, before realizing how small the boat is and how close I will have to be to him. I inch past him, the skin of my back and shoulders prickling. I don't know what it is I fear, but I do know that I cannot allow him to touch me. I clamber into the boat before he can offer me his hand.
The look he casts me is filled with hurt. 'I'm sorry,' I wish to say. 'I am not afraid of you. Only, if you touch me I think I will die.'
My rational mind knows that this is a ridiculous thought, but my feelings, so recently set loose, would not be ignored. I cower in my end of the boat and will not look at him at all. The boat eventually bumps to shore and he, being closer, leaps out first and then stand with his arms folded on the flagstones, not offering me any help out. A small revenge, but one that makes me feel a bit better. I have not hurt him too deeply with my refusal to touch him if he can be petty.
I stand and let my body center itself as my father had taught me on our long sea voyages. Once I find my balance, and step lightly onto the dock. My escape is close at hand and I face him with more tranquility than I have felt since I saw him tonight. "Thank you, Erik," I say as he hands me the lantern. For one moment, our eyes catch and hold and oh, saying his name has been a mistake!
He steps toward me and I step back, the memory of how I had pressed my face into his chest not even an hour ago pushing into my consciousness.
"Meet me at the Bal Masque tomorrow," he says.
I open my mouth but do not know what to say. I do not want to tell him that I have already agreed to go with Raoul de Chagny, who's ring I wore even now around my neck and for whom I had agreed to give up performing. It feels ungrateful.
No, I tell myself firmly, Be honest, for once in your life. It feels like you have betrayed him.
A ludicrous thought. I have made no promises to him, nor he to me.
He stares at me for a long moment, taking in my silence. Finally, he nods and steps back, making to return to the boat.
"When?" I surprise myself by asking.
"At midnight, be in the ballroom. You will see me there."
I should not accept. I should tell him of my plan to marry and to leave the Opera. But I can't—I can't! Erik has given me his music and, through it, my own soul back. I am half-afraid that if I say anything at all, he will take back what he has given me like some vengeful god.
I cannot see him anymore. He has left the lamplight, leaving me at the center of its glow. I feel terribly exposed. It is cold down here, the chill of the flagstones making itself known through my slippers. I shiver and walk quickly away, not acquiescing but not refusing either. I hurriedly trace my footsteps of earlier; my mind is still in a riot as I push open the panel behind the mirror and tiptoe out, locking the dressing room door behind me.
It is only after I have taken a few steps down the corridor that I realize that I am still holding the lantern and how will I explain that to Madame Giry?
I quickly unlock the dressing room door again, discarding the lantern inside, then practically sprint up to my room. Relief fills me as I reach my bed and I pull the coverlet over me, determined to forget this whole madcap adventure.
I am in the space between waking and dreaming when I hear his voice, softly singing a lullaby. I nestle deeper into the warmth and let Erik's voice carry me away.
Erik
I have cried in front of her again. Good god, I think as I pull myself together. What has loving her reduced me to?
I am kneeling before Christine, pressed against her knees like a child and - miracle of miracles! - her hand is softly carding through my hair, such as it is. All my outrage and wounded dignity at her behavior flies out the window and I am struck, once again, by how deeply I love her. I feel the strong urge to beg her to stay, or to let me tutor her as I have done, though I know she has learned all she can from me. Even to promise to return and bury me when I am dead. To be so pathetically in love with her used to anger me. Now, I am only resigned to it.
I love her, and it will no doubt kill me soon.
What I want, more than anything, is that she will immortalize my music. That some part of my useless, god-forsaken life has meaning.
But even that is too much to ask.
I sit tiredly back on my heels. The silken mask is wet with tears, clinging to my cheeks uncomfortably. I fish around in my pocket for a handkerchief, refusing to look at her. I lift the mask away a little, just enough so that I can swipe at my cheeks and relieve my discomfort. I am surprised when her fingers close around my wrist, bare skin touching, sending a thrill through me. She pulls my hand towards her and, at first, I do not understand at all what she means for me to do, for I am still holding the mask in my hand.
An absurd thought occurs to me. Perhaps she wants to see my face?
But who would want that?
She pulls more insistently, and I look into her eyes, trying to discover her motive. My hand goes limp under hers and I allow her to pull it away, revealing my hideous face to her.
I can't help the way my eyes devour her face, looking for signs of betrayal, anger tightening in my gut like violin strings. She gazes back at me. We are very close together; she is no doubt getting a good look at le mort vivant. Her face is passive, wearing the placid and rather vapid expression she usually wears. But her eyes—her eyes—are wild with emotions barely held in check, a deep wellspring that had been cut off for too long and is now in danger of erupting.
I cannot credit it. But I know then, with perfect clarity, that I cannot make her stay.
"Go Christine," I tell her flatly, despair leadening my voice. I bow my head, no longer able to look at her. "Go and marry your boy. I am unworthy of you."
God, I am a monster. The things I had been planning, to get my revenge. To bring her low. To hurt her, even, as she has hurt me. A kind of madness has been gripping me all of these months, and when I could not exorcise it in music, I did so in twisted fantasies, even as I indulged in wild hopes. That she would change her mind, come to her senses, love me instead.
I have surely been driven mad.
Still, here and now, I am pleased to realize that I can do her no harm. That I truly want her to be happy, even if it is not with me. I will let her go away with her Vicomte. I will reveal my music to the world. And, at long last, I will put myself out of my dreadful misery and be a living corpse no longer.
I feel some comfort at the thought.
Christine is silent, as if afraid to take my offer seriously. She is right to suspect me, with as many times as I've deceived her. I suddenly feel exhausted. I want very much to be alone, to suffer my inevitable breakdown in peace.
I am on the verge of saying something when she interjects, "Your music," in a strange, high voice.
She kneels to gather up the loose pages, her long, curling hair sliding over one shoulder. I want to tell her to leave the damn papers for all I care, but I find myself helping her to gather up my life's work instead. I push the sheets I can reach over to her, careful that our hands do not touch. The final few pages are gathered, and I hold them out to her, trying to regain some of my dignity. The mask is lying next to my knee and when she takes the papers from me and stands, I fasten it back on and stand myself.
I take a deep breath, feeling calmer now that my face is covered. "Come, I will take you above."
"No!" Christine cries, seeming suddenly quite distressed. "There is no need for that. I came down on my own, after all."
I will not allow her to walk alone in the dark but, as she seems so against it, I see no reason to fight her. I acquiesce, determined to follow from a distance until she is safely ensconced in her bed once again. I offer instead to take her across the lake. She nods and skirts around me widely, climbing aboard the boat as if she cannot wait to be off.
My stupid, treacherous heart breaks at the thought, even though I had wanted to same only a few seconds ago. I take my place in the bow, casting off. After a few minutes it occurs to me that she is refusing to look at me. That she is in, in fact, cowering in her seat like a hunted animal.
Has seeing my face frightened her so?
I fight back a sigh. It should not matter to me. After all, I have already freed her. Still, it hurts to think that she is afraid of me, even now when I had bared my very soul to her. 'Did you not see my heart in my music?' I want to ask. But what does my heart matter, when my face is so terrifying?
Oh, Christine.
We bump against the bank and I jump out. I am careful not to touch her, merely handing her the lantern; I know the way well enough without it. She takes the lantern from me. The warmth of her hand near mine burns like a flame.
"Thank you, Erik," she says. Her tone is shy but sincere, and I chance a look at her eyes. Not afraid, not angry. She looks…peaceful, I suppose. My name comes out her mouth easily, a name she has not even said before tonight. There seems to be some significance to that, but I cannot divine what is might be because I am staring dazedly into her eyes like a love-struck idiot. Insanity is pressing in on me, but I have the strength to hold on for a little longer. One last time.
"Meet me at the Bal Masque tomorrow."
She opens her mouth, then closes it. The gold chain around her neck glimmers in the lantern's light. She is not mine; I know this. I will let her go. But not now! Not now!
"When?"
"At midnight, be in the ballroom. You will see me there."
She nods, face suddenly flushed, before turning and fleeing up the graveled bank and towards the stairs. I follow at a more sedate pace, silently watching her stumble through the winding passageways that lead to the world above. I wait for her to lock the dressing room door before emerging from behind the mirror. I am just crossing the room when the lock turns again and the door opens. I freeze, counting on the darkness to protect me from discovery and lucky me, it does. It is only Christine, anyway, stepping quickly into the room and stashing the darkened lantern on a side table.
I allow her to get a little bit ahead of me after this, my heart still in my throat at how close I'd come to being discovered. I am a lunatic, I know, following her around everywhere, waiting for her to sink into bed and then singing softly to her from behind walls. I know that what I am doing is mad and pathetic.
I know that what I plan to do tomorrow is equally insane.
Nevertheless, I sing until Christine's breathing evens into sleep and descend once again. As soon as I reach home, I go immediately to my music stand and the score which Christine had left there. I leaf through it, righting the pages and straightening the ones that had been creased or trod upon. I have determined that there should be two copies—one for the managers and one for Christine, herself. A fitting wedding gift.
I realize only when a tear splashes down on the first movement of the second act that I am crying again. I rip off my mask in irritation, rubbing my cheeks with both hands before gripping my hair and pulling. There is something niggling at me, some insidious hope that says, She saw your face and did not run away. As if it changes anything.
I push my foolish thoughts aside and laboriously copy out the score. By the end my hand is cramping, but I have finished it. I bind my opera with a red ribbon and glance at the clock. It is barely lunch time.
I force myself to eat, though I am not hungry. Still, I will need my wits about me tonight, if I am to succeed in my purpose.
I lie down in the swan bed for a few hours. The oppressive feeling of Christine's nearness crashes over me as soon as I recline, my body not understanding that it is a corpse and should not behave in such a lively fashion. I ache thinking of her, partially unclothed and here in my home.
Why had she come here?
"I was concerned," she had said. Concerned for me? Perish the thought! Still, I had touched her and she had seen my face, and she had not died or run away. But later, she had seemed afraid, not even looking at me. But then she had agreed to see me tonight. Around and around my thoughts went, Christine's behavior provoking and bewildering me. I did not sleep at all.
Soon enough, evening comes and I rise, bathing and dressing carefully.
I do not like mirrors as a general rule, but my ornate costume obliges me to use one in order to see the effect. I survey myself. I am dressed, head to toe, in deep crimson velvet. A brocaded doublet covers my chest, threaded through with silver and black, as are the trousers and tall boots I wear. A red hat with plumes of red and black feathers complete my Don Juan. Beneath the hat, a joke, my own horrible visage. I am a twisted amalgam, somewhere between the Spanish lover and Death. It is macabre, I know, but perfectly suits my mood this evening.
The wild hope that gripped me earlier makes itself known again and I stare at my face in the mirror, fighting it back.
Just because she feels pity for you does not mean that she will consent to be yours, I tell the unruly eyes in the mirror. They look back mutinously. Fool! Twice-damned, tender-hearted fool.
No. I cannot allow myself to hope that Christine will love me. I know that she loves her boy. I only want to see her, to be near her, to share my music with her one last time.
I load my pockets with the various tricks of my trade, items that will help me to enter and exit the grand ballroom without being set upon. I will die soon, but it will be on my own terms and not at the hands of a mob. I take a deep breath. I feel calmer now. Midnight is almost upon me and it feels like fate is drawing me forward, my actions coming automatically and without thought.
I take up the two copies of my score and make for the world above.
Christine
I cannot settle myself all the next day.
Erik's music burns a hole in my mind. Aminta's shyness masks a deep despair. Don Juan recognizes in her a part of himself, his own isolation and hopelessness, which he conceals with mockery and dissipation. In the second act, they circle closer and closer, revealing more and more of their loneliness to one another. The realization that they are in love is a conflagration set to music, swelling to the grand finale, when Dan Juan invites Aminta into a dalliance and she rebuffs him, but sings sweetly of her tender love for him. And the ending—so jarring! Disturbingly unfinished, the passion of the finale never realized.
It sits like a thorn in my mind and I worry at it all day.
I do not think I am being arrogant to see myself in Aminta or to think Erik has fashioned Don Juan at least partially on himself. I recognize my own aching loneliness and fear in Aminta. I am not brave, though. Not like she is. I have always been afraid to give my heart to another.
But you have given your heart to another, my rational mind insists. You have promised to marry Raoul. Good, kind Raoul, who would not force me to feel these terrible things. Raoul, who would take me away from Erik's dark music and volatile temper. Raoul, who is everything I have wanted all my life.
And yet, I could not get Aminta's refrain from my head, high and sweet:
L'amour est implacable,
éclatant à travers,
changer tous vos plans.
Ce n'est pas toujours gentil,
parfois comme le feu
ça déchire votre monde.
The way Erik described love—implacable, like fire, bursting through his life and all his plans. But joyous. Rapturous and all-consuming.
He loves me that way.
The thought is humbling. I had not known for sure until I read his Don Juan. His regard, I thought, was for my voice. For the Angel he had created, not for Christine. Even when he spoke of love, asking me to see him as a man and not a monster, I could not believe that he meant anything other than to guide my voice. For who would want Christine Daae for herself?
But he does love me, so very desperately. It is there in his tender drawing of Aminta, her sorrow and pain unfolding into strength.
But I am not Aminta! I haven't her strength. Erik offers conflagration, none of Raoul's steady warmth. No Christine, be honest. It is myself I am afraid of. Since my father died, I have dwelt in dreams, my emotions vague and unfocused, sliding through the gaps left by others. Not touching and untouched. Erik has opened my heart to music, but to open my heart to Erik? How can I even think of it?
What a pair we make, he with his death's head and me with my dead heart!
It is in this frame of mind that Raoul comes to fetch me to the Bal, crying out when he sees me wool-gathering in my chair near the fire, "Oh, but you aren't ready yet!"
He is dressed splendidly in dove grey, a simple black mask covering his face.
I apologize and hurry off to the room I share with Meg, who had already left with her beau. I can hear Madame Giry making idle conversation with the Vicomte and I feel terribly embarrassed at having put her into such a position, for I know she does not like to deal with the nobility. I burst from my room, wearing the white dress Raoul had insisted on paying for.
"I'm sorry," I cry again, not knowing if I am apologizing for my tardiness or for my treacherous thoughts. He takes my arm and makes light conversation as we descend to the main foyer. There is a crush of people, but Raoul navigates the crowd easily, nodding and smiling at those he passes. I follow, feeling out of sorts and awkward. My dress, which had seemed so beautiful on the dressmaker's mannequin, feels heavy and overly ornate. I am keenly aware of the whispers that follow us, the scandal of one of the de Chagny's, even the younger son, taking up with a chorus girl.
"Pay it no mind," Raoul smiles warmly at me, noticing how my steps have slowed. "There is someone here who wants to meet you."
Raoul drags me towards a tall man with fair hair, wearing the costume of a chevalier.
"My brother, the Comte de Chagny," Raoul waves a hand towards the man, who turns away from his companions to take me in. "My fiancée, Christine Daae."
I curtsy and stutter out something appropriate. I had not intended our engagement to be made public until after the New Year, but apparently Raoul has other ideas. The Comte's golden mask is smirking down at me, the blue eyes behind it just as cold.
"My pleasure, Mademoiselle," the Comte says, with restrained politeness. Raoul bridges the gap between the Comte and me with polite chatter, and I chime in with the expected niceties, feeling rather like a trained bird. The lace of my collar itches.
"I hope that we will marry before I go away to the North Pole," Raoul is telling his brother, "If the lady agrees." He bows gallantly in my direction and I smile weakly, giving him no answer. Erik said he would be here tonight and I look around a bit wildly, trying to find him in the crowd.
"Indeed?" The Comte looks at me shrewdly, drawing my attention back to the two men. "But you wear no ring, Mademoiselle."
I am tempted to tell him that I have it with me on a chain, but I know revealing that would lead to certain questions. "Not while I still take the stage," I demur.
The Comte nods, eyes wintery. "Brother, I wonder if I might speak with you alone for a moment?"
The Comte draws Raoul away, no doubt to chastise him for getting engaged without his family's consent. While Raoul is of age to do so, his family's money bought his commission and will provide for us when we are wed. Especially as I was not allowed to take the stage again.
A feel a tremor run through me at the thought.
Raoul waves his hand at his brother and the Comte seizes his arm, saying something emphatic and I suddenly want to be away, anywhere but here with all these eyes upon me.
It is easy enough to slide away into the crowd, to get lost among the masked revelers. I catch a glimpse of myself reflected in the glittering glass that lines the magnificent stairway up to the opera boxes. The mask on my face is black and plain, rather like Erik's own mask. I shake the thought away and pluck a glass of champagne from a nearby tray, sipping at it as I drift through the crowd. Meg is on the other side of the room, her pink dress a confection against the rich colors that are the fashion this year. I pull at my dress's collar and overhear my name.
"Oh yes, Mademoiselle Daae has certainly landed herself a fish, though not as big as Sorelli's," a woman's voice says and her coterie laughs. It is Carlotta. I know it by the glossy hennaed curls spilling over her dress, which is cut daringly to show off one bare shoulder.
"Ah but Sorelli is only a mistress, where Christine will be a wife," one of her group rejoined.
"Perhaps," Carlotta says, eyes narrow behind her velvet mask. "Though if that's the case, I pity her. Her voice has a certain sweetness to it. I would hate for her to never perform again."
I stand, staring at her in astonishment. It is probably the kindest thing La Carlotta has ever said about me, and she is speaking in earnest. Her eyes look a little sad and her companion clutches her hand in his and turns the conversation to a different topic. I back away, the tremor running through me again.
I gulp the rest of the champagne. It is near midnight. Erik said that I would see him, but he has not told me what his costume will be. Perhaps this is some perverse game of him, to make me guess? My head is spinning a bit.
I drift from the grand foyer into the ballroom. This room is the mirror of the one I have just left—tiled with shining marble and dominated by a large staircase. This staircase, which leads to the galleries rather than to the boxes, is just as ornate as the one in the foyer—covered in lush red carpeting, thickly carved with Grecian scrollwork, the gas lights reflecting the veins of gold and green in the marble balustrade.
"What a shame the Phantom can't be here!" I hear Monsieur Andre say from just behind me.
"A shame indeed," Monsieur Firman's voice slurs from too much champagne. I have lost my own glass someplace in the foyer. The heat from the crowd makes the room nearly unbearable, even with the doors standing open to the outside. My face is hot beneath my mask and my wide skirts weigh me down. The orchestra strikes up a lively tune and couples being to whirl around the dance floor. The tune is familiar. The words of the waltz come to me from across years, my father's voice as he plays it on the violin echoing in my head,
Bei jedem Walzerschritt
tanzt auch die Seele mit,
da hüpft das Herzchen klein,
es klopft und pocht:
Sei mein! Sei mein!
The refrain of the soprano part is sung soft and low, the music falling away to sweetness before sweeping into the ecstatic duet at the end.
's ist wahr, 's ist wahr, du hast mich lieb! It's true, it's true, you love me!
I adore this song. Erik and I sang it once. He was an Angel then and my voice was untouched by the tenderness and passion the song calls for. How I must have disappointed him!
The tremor that has trembled my heart all evening shakes me again. The waltz swirls around and around me. I feel like I am falling into a dark pit. I close my eyes. My cheeks under the mask are flaming. A hand seizes my arm, bringing me out of my reverie and around to face Raoul.
"Christine, why did you run off so?" he chastens me. "My brother was very put out."
"Oh," I say vaguely, still caught up in the song and my strange mood.
"Christine, whatever is the matter?" Raoul is looking at me in concern and I know, then, that I can never give up my music. Not for Raoul. Not for anyone.
The orchestra falls silent and the clock in the foyer begins to chime midnight. Messrs Firmin and Andre are climbing the staircase to make their speech and announce the opera that will open the season. The crowd quiets, turning towards them in anticipation, but I do not wish to stay.
It is midnight and Erik is not here. Oh, what a mess I have made of everything!
I pull at Raoul's arm. "I wish to go back to my rooms now," I say rather forcefully. I need time to contemplate the feelings making themselves known to me.
"Of course," he says, and we turn to go when suddenly, the lights are extinguished. Someone cries out; another voice shouts out a joke. Uneasy laughter and then the lights spring up again. Andre and Firmin stand dumbly, halfway up the stairs, facing Erik.
He is here.
Erik
I arrive at the masquerade in dramatic fashion. The lights wink out to hide my entrance so that I seem to spring from a nightmare, from the bowels of hell. I strike a pose, defying my own fear of being so exposed in a room filled with people. I see Firmin's eyes widen and he grasps Andre's arm, whispering something into the other manager's ear.
I pay them no heed, my eyes scanning the crowd for one particular person.
Yes, there, just below the staircase, clothed in a white dress with a silver-spangled skirt. The boy clutches her arm when he sees me, as though he thinks to protect her. I ignore him, focusing my attention upon her. My face is set in stone. I am here, I say with my eyes. Do as you will.
The managers rush forward, and I give them my instructions, presenting my Don Juan with a flourish. Even as I speak out my orders and my threats, my attention is trained only on her. The dress does not suit her, but she looks lovely, nonetheless. A lily amongst roses, pure and true. A coil of her dark hair has escaped the confines of her coiffure and tickles as the cheek of her mask.
I dismiss Andre and Firmin with a wave of my hand. They are both frozen to the stairs, gawping at me, and I descend past them. I hate having any person at my back and so I twist as I pass them on the stairs and smile, chillingly. Firmin's eyes widen as he realizes that this is no mask; he is looking on the face of the Opera Ghost, and he and Andre flee for the safety of the gallery.
Christine's eyes are on me. I curse the mask for hiding her expression from me. I do not know what expression my own face holds, but I hear confused murmurs and some cries as the partygoers begin to understand who I am. There is a general exodus for the doors, but Christine remains planted where she is, the damnable boy at her side, clutching her arm tightly. She breaks away from him, ascending the stairs towards me.
"You came," she says in a small voice.
"As I promised," I say, words heavy with feeling. She is standing two steps below me, the Vicomte frozen behind her, his burning eyes watching me. No doubt, wishing for my death. Well, he shall have it soon. The morphine was already measured out, waiting for me.
"I want you to have this," I tell her and hold out Don Juan Triumphant. It seems insignificant, suddenly, that my life should be reduced to only this one creation. I am surprised by the sudden wish that it was not so. The death rattle of my psyche, I suppose.
Christine does not reach out to take the score; she merely stands and looks at me, eyes revealing nothing at all. So, this is what it feels like to be confronted by a mask, I think. There is a poetry to it that appeals to me. I smile gently and her eyes take in my ghastly visage. She does not seem afraid. Instead, she shivers towards me, her hands coming out at last to pluck the manuscript from my grasp and clutch it close.
"I want you to sing it," I try again. "And remember me."
"Remember you?"
I feel a wash of kindness towards her. Will she be distressed by my death? I think she will. She is a good, sweet girl.
I bend forward, my long arm closing the gap between us to sweep the curl from her cheek. I allow my fingertips to linger on the warm skin of her neck, above the golden chain she wears, just for a moment. My breath shivers out of me. The boy looks apoplectic behind her.
"Make my music immortal," I say softly and withdraw my hand.
"What do you mean? Erik – " she takes a step toward me and the Vicomte springs forward, taking her arm and pulling her bodily away. Christine stumbles, would have fallen if he had not been grasping onto her arm so tightly. As it is, he thrusts her behind him and turns his enraged eyes to me, ripping off the black mask that covers his face.
"So, I meet my rival at last," he says impetuously. "You fiend, show me your true face like a man."
I hear Christine make a small noise behind him. She attempts to step around de Chagny's body but he blocks her. He is an imbecile, but he clearly loves her. I shall have to content myself with that.
I allow the smile to drain away, replacing it with the terrifying expression of Le Mort Vivant. His eyes widen gratifyingly and Christine at last breaks out from behind him, rushing towards me. I step back, maintaining the distance between us. I should not have told her about my death; I see that now. At one time I had thought that Christine's pity would be better than nothing, but it was not, it was not!
I turn away, filled with the need to be away from her, to grieve in peace. I have cried an ocean of tears over her, ridiculous bastard that I am, and will cry another before this is through.
"Don't go," she says plaintively behind me.
I shake my head and keep moving.
If I stop, if I look at her, I will not be able to let her go. I am only a man, after all. I ascend to the top of the great staircase, gawkers parting before me, when I hear the Vicomte's voice.
"Christine, you cannot mean to go with this man."
The staring crowd erupts into whispers at this. I glance back, perplexed, and it is plain that she means to do just that. Christine is hot on my heels, only a few steps behind me and apparently willing to chase me down in public, the protesting de Chagny be damned.
I admire her very much in this moment. My brave, good girl.
I find some inner strength with which to say, "Christine, go back to your Vicomte."
"No," she rejoins stubbornly. "You are not going to do this to me again."
It takes me a moment to realize that she means that I should not disappear again. A ludicrous notion. Does she wish to watch me die?
Raoul is fairly vibrating with outrage below. His brother steps out of the crowd and grasps his arm, whispering something. The Vicomte pulls away but he does not pursue Christine up the stairs.
"That man is a liar and a murderer," he accuses me levelly, but his eyes are fixed on Christine, who is looking back at him. "Or have you forgotten?"
"No," she said softly. "I haven't forgotten. I shall not ever forget." She turns to me then and holds my eyes.
An insane optimism grips me, for the eyes which meet mine are filled with affection, as well as some humor for the spectacle that we are making of ourselves. I cannot keep from smiling back, just a bit.
God, what a pair we make!
She takes the last step towards me and we are both standing at the top of the stair, only a step away from the trapdoor that will take us home. Her mask is featureless, but the amusement in her eyes turns to a merry challenge. She knows what I will do. I let a delighted laugh escape me. I sweep her suddenly into my arms and turn, dragging her the requisite step. The smoke bomb that I have hidden in my pocket detonates. I trigger the trapdoor and we both tumble into darkness.
Christine
A scream startles from my throat as Erik and I fall into the dark. We make a soft landing and his arms release me so that I can roll with the momentum. I tumble, my legs catching in my wide skirts. Erik's score is still clasped in my arms. I feel Erik take it from me and pull me up. The trapdoor has closed above us. I can hear faint shouts and the stamp of feet above our heads, but I can see nothing.
"Come," Erik says quickly.
I stand still, hands hanging at my sides. My mind is racing. We have both made ourselves ridiculous, and poor Raoul as well. I should feel very guilty, but all I can feel is a crashing sense of relief. I grasp my collar in both hands and rip the stiff lace off, throwing it to the ground, little giggles escaping me.
"Christine," he says, concern wreathing his voice This only makes me laugh harder. He leaves me for a moment, returns with a shuttered lantern. He is still not wearing a mask and I am delighted by this fact, that I can see his unguarded, expressive face. He looks… I peer up at him in the dim light. The magnificent hat with its plumed feathers must have tumbled off in our fall, for I can see his furrowed brow and the receding line of his grey hair. He looks concerned and a bit fearful.
He is uncomfortable with me looking at him, I decide. How wondrous to be able to discern Erik's feelings at last.
"Come," he says again and takes my hand in his, leading me. I am caught up by the cold of his hand, which I can feel through his leather glove and my silk glove. After the overheated ball room, his coolness is a blessed relief and I am so enraptured by the feeling that it takes me a moment to realize that we have reached the banks of the lake. He helps me into the boat, my skirts too cumbersome for me to have attempted it on my own. I watch him as he pushes us away from the dock. He raises the gondolier's pole with hardly a splash, his movements elegant and purposeful. I am deeply aware of the movements of his body: his breathing quick with exertion, the way he must lean closer to me on the backstroke, the lantern painting an orange glow onto his sallow skin. I wish he were not wearing gloves.
I want to laugh again. I strip off my long silk gloves and discard them in the lake. Underneath my mask, I am grinning like a mad woman. I feel joyous, carefree as a child. Finally free of the terrible grief that I have carried all these years, as if my suffering could bring Papa back. As if Papa would have wanted me to suffer.
My emotions choke me. Relief, yes. An intense need for connection and further intimacy. A swoop of guilt for how I have behaved and for the years I have lost. And joy. Joy, most of all.
I know the word for this. It is trembling on the edge of my consciousness, but I cannot acknowledge it yet. I will not be able to behave sensibly if I admit it right now and one of us must be sensible.
I force the feeling away for the moment and try to calm my breathing.
We arrive at the grotto, the portcullis closing behind us as Erik takes my hand and helps me out of the boat. It is like I had forgotten what touching him was like in the minutes between our hands clasping. The feeling of his fingers closing over my hand sends a shock through me, only one layer between us now. My head spins. I cannot look at him until he releases me and steps back.
He turns and retreats to the place he feels safest, his music room. He picks up a mask from the bench and makes to put it on.
"No," I cry, much too loudly in the echoing cavern. I don't care. I don't care at all. I am completely beyond dignity.
I fling myself forward, tearing the mask from my own face and casting it to the floor. "I want to look at you," I say in a choked voice. I cannot bear the thought of another layer between us right now. He looks disbelievingly at me, his face creased in anguish.
He is standing by the black-lacquered bench, the mask still in his hand, held between us like a shield. I advance on him and his disbelief melts away. Now, he just looks afraid.
Oh no, my dear, I think. That will not do.
I come closer. At first, he drops back but stops a few feet from the wall and stands his ground, chin jutting out defiantly. I feel a surge of affection. The wide, mad smile is on my face again. The word that I've been avoiding pushes its way into the forefront of my mind at last.
"God, I love you," I say and grasp each side of his velvet cloak to pull him down and kiss him.
The first kiss is very awkward. I had only been kissed a few times before, and I have never instigated a kiss. Erik has never kissed anyone at all, and he is shocked besides. I swoop up too quickly, mashing our lips painfully together. I soften the kiss, feeling mortified but also grimly amused, for this is not perfect, not a dream or fantasy. This is real. I kiss him for a few, thrilling seconds before I notice that his mouth is hard and unmoving under mine. I lighten the kiss still more, feathering my lips over his. Still, he does not move, not even to draw me closer.
I am beginning to feel a bit abashed.
It is possible that I have read this all wrong?
I draw back, but Erik's hands suddenly spring to life and stop me after only a few inches. I open my eyes to see his look of fear dawning into delight.
"You, love me?" he gasps. "If you leave me now, I shall surely die, Christine. I cannot live like this any longer."
He kisses me then and any semblance of rational thought is ripped to shreds the moment his arms close around me. We fall gracelessly against each other, our lips clumsily parted as both our heads turn away, gasping into the scant distance between us.
I can feel Erik's eyelashes against my temple.
I begin to laugh quite hysterically as he presses kisses to my forehead, murmuring, "At last. At last."
My tears break free and I weep and laugh into his neck, holding him tight to me. At last, my heart cries. At last!
Erik
Things were quite awkward by the time we reached the house.
Christine was still wearing that infernal mask, for one thing. I was unmasked, having very stupidly left my mask upon the bench of my pipe organ in a defiant, and now discomfiting, gesture. For another, she had said nothing at all to me since that scene upstairs, under the trapdoor. I can still not fathom why she acted as she did, coming away with me quite willingly, then staring at me sightlessly, moving like an automaton, as if forced along. I hate it. I had wanted a gentle goodbye, not whatever this was.
The silence stands between us gracelessly and I walk away from her, retrieving the mask I had left on my music bench and lifting it to my face when Christine yelps, "No!"
The loudness of her voice startles me. I turn to her in shock. She walks towards me, stripping the mask from her over face and slinging it away. Her chest heaves spectacularly and more of her hair is escaping its pins. She looks absolutely wild.
"I want to look at you."
She has clearly gone mad from strain.
She shakes her head at my expression, a wide smile slashing across her face. I step back, concerned for her. She doesn't halt her progress at all, backing me into the wall. I stop before my back touches it, damned if I'll be trapped by anyone, even her. Her smile widens gleefully.
I feel a real stab of fear then. Not for the silly reason I am trying to convince myself of, for I know very well that she is not mad. I am afraid, because this moment has finally come and I am not sure that I am ready. Even as I long for her with every fiber of my being, I am not sure I am ready to believe that she will accept me at long last.
She tears my delusion from me swiftly.
"God, I love you," she says fervently and kisses me.
At her words, a roaring rises in my head and I cannot feel her lips on mine, though I know she kisses me several times. I cannot move, I cannot speak, my whole being is transfixed on one thought, drowning out every other sensation.
Christine loves me.
She has said it and she is kissing me. At last, at last!
I come back to myself in time to feel her pull away and I wrap my arms around her waist, refusing to let her go far. My hands are shaking, grasping at her silken dress like a drowning man. Christine tilts her head up to look at me, her unruly hair tumbling down around her shoulders. God, I love you.
"You, love me?" I clasp her to me. "If you leave me now, I shall surely die, Christine. I cannot live like this any longer."
I kiss her, stumbling as she collapses against my chest and shakes my lips loose from hers. She buries her face in my shoulder, laughs joyfully. I cannot help but brush worshipful kisses across her forehead, giving voice to the refrain still running through my mind, "At last. At last."
She weeps into my neck, clinging close to me.
I am afraid that we are both out of our senses for some time after that. We sink to the floor and press close, hands grasping fabric and flesh. She strips off my gloves, the clasp of her fingers the best thing I have ever felt. We kiss, over and over again. We whisper very soppy things to one another.
"When did you first know you loved me?" she asks.
"Why, the moment I first heard your voice," I tease.
She pokes me rather heartlessly in the ribs, the minx.
Rebuked, I tell her quite truthfully, "It was when I began to consult your feelings on my actions." I feel her forehead, tucked under my chin, wrinkle in question and so I elaborate. "I felt terribly guilty about lying to you with all that Angel claptrap. Not at first, you understand, but eventually—as you began to confide in me—I felt that I was doing you a grave injustice."
She pulls back enough to brush a swift kiss across my lips. "I forgive you for that," she says.
She is generosity itself.
"Thank you," I say through the lump in my throat. "I have never cared about people's opinions, you understand? I have always lived apart from other people. I care for Antoinette, but I would not sway my course of action for her. But, you! I imagined how you would react to what I did. What I said. Even what I thought. How you plagued me!
"It was then that I knew that I love you."
She kisses me for a few heated minutes after that.
Eventually, the danger we are both in forces me to gather my strength and pull away from her. She looks up at me in question.
"We cannot remain here," I tell her. With difficulty I take my hands from her body and stand up. "The denizens of my opera may tolerate a ghost, but they will not stomach a kidnapper."
"Kidnapper? Erik, I went willingly with you. Everyone saw us. No one will think-"
"You are an innocent, my dear. Your Vicomte was not prepared to let you go. And he will not allow you to stay with me without a fight."
"You do not know him. He would not want me to be unhappy. Why would you think that he would fight you?"
"Because I would, if our situations were reversed," I say simply.
I move around my home with purpose, gathering bank notes, a change of clothing, a few masks. I have nothing of Christine's here—the wedding dress in the armoire will be utterly useless to us—we will have to buy her things in the morning. For now, we must put as much distance between ourselves and Paris as possible. It is a minor miracle that no mob has made its way down here already.
I take up one of my masks and buckle it on. I turn to Christine, who is watching me with unease. I sigh. We cannot begin like this.
"I want us to travel out of Paris now, tonight," I explain.
"To where?"
"North," I decide on impulse.
"To Sweden," Christine says and takes my hands in hers.
"Yes, alright. To Sweden," I say.
We go.
A/N: The title of this story is from the musical The Next Five Years. The plot and lyrics for Don Juan Triumphant are mine, but the character names are from the Lloyd Weber musical. The waltz Christine hears at the Bal Masque is 'Lippen schweigen' by Franz Behar.
Please review-constructive criticism is very welcome!