Blessings and graces to all those kind folks who've given me feedback for this story. Thank you so very much! :)
"Catalonian dogs! You're not worthy of the sun that shines upon you!"
– Colonel Antonio Aymat, military governor of Barcelona, 1939
Erik surprised Christine by relenting in his decision to keep her imprisoned under Montjuic. He allowed her to return home two days after their excursion through the city.
"You are free to return to your guardian," Erik had said, "but with one caveat: know that I will be watching you, and that I am everywhere. You will continue your lessons, and I will require you to visit me whenever possible." How his hot gaze had lingered on her, nearly burning her in its intensity! She shivered, remembering.
"Well, now, tell me about this mysterious friend you were visiting," said Mamá Valerio, breaking through Christine's reverie and bringing her back to the present.
"What would you like to know?" responded Christine, mentally vying for time. Regular meals, medicine, and afternoons spent on the balcony had restored Mamá so completely that Christine hardly knew her now. With great effort, she remembered the woman she had known before the war – the one whose curiosity and sharp tongue made for a formidable character. Mamá was no longer an invalid and was eager to take her place as head of the household once more.
"First of all, you can tell me the gender of this friend – male or female?"
Christine blushed.
"Male, then. That would explain a lot. We've had enough food to give some away from the neighbors lately, and good bread, not that cornbread that's only fit for animals. You've been sleeping with a man to get us provisions!" Mamá's tone was not one of reproach but of sadness.
"No, Mamá, I'm not sleeping with anyone! We have more money because my salary has increased…"
"Bilge! If you're not sleeping with him yet, he expects to be sleeping with you soon. What will you do then? Forget you ever had a husband?" She lowered her voice to a whisper at the last sentence.
The buzz of the doorbell interrupted them, and although Paqui appeared in the sitting-room doorway, Mamá held up an imperious hand and rushed to open the door herself. After a quick look through the peephole, she turned and flattened herself against the door. "It's a priest! What have you done, Christine?"
"Nothing!" mouthed Christine, but she paled nonetheless. Some of their neighbors had been arrested and were still in the Modelo prison thanks to a parish priest who served as an informant.
The doorbell buzzed again, and Mamá yanked open the door. The priest, a tall man in his fifties with green eyes and weathered skin, smiled easily and removed the broad-brimmed teja respectfully. He held a gray cardboard box to his side with his other hand.
"A very good afternoon… Señora Valerio, I believe? I'm Father Efrén Dominguez, and I'm now the parish priest of San José Oriol." He lifted his chin to indicate Christine, who now stood behind Mamá. His smile had disappeared. "Señora Cristina Daaé? Your father and I were friends. I'm here on this sad errand at your father's final request. I'm sorry I wasn't able to come sooner." He held up the box he carried.
Coffee was served, not the usual chicory. When milk was brought out for the coffee, Christine saw the priest's eyebrows rise at such audacious luxury. She lowered her reddened eyes, glad that she now had her sobbing under control. The contents of the box had been scarce – her father's pocket watch, a worn photograph of her mother, and a letter. This was all she had left of her father. She looked at the letter again and sighed. It was a declaration of her father's love for his daughter, filled with dreams for her safety and happiness.
"He took me everywhere with him after my mother died. He was a marvelous violinist, Father…"
"I know. I had the privilege of hearing him, though I regret that his violin was lost."
"Lost?"
"Please do not ask about it," Father Efrén said firmly.
Christine deduced from his tone that the violin was in the hands of her father's executioners, and was silent.
Mamá Valerio glanced at Christine and picked up the conversation. "You say you became close friends with Gustave? We're grateful for the help you have given us, especially with his burial…but…you must know that his political leanings place us in a delicate situation now…"
The priest smiled somewhat wearily. "You needn't worry regarding my discretion. I am your friend. One of my purposes in coming here was to offer any help I can give you, but" – he glanced significantly at the creamer containing the milk – "you seem to be doing very well on your own. Gustave confided in me, you know. He told me that you are married to a young man with rather progressive ideas, Christine?"
Christine's heart stopped, but she decided to trust Father Efrén. "Yes. And Raoul's political leanings do also put us in a 'delicate situation,' as Mamá puts it. We were married when I was eighteen, but I haven't seen him in two years."
"There are no children, then."
Christine blushed. "We had hopes, but none ever came, Father. I don't think I can have children." She thought of Raoul's quiet disappointment with a pang. "It's funny, but Raoul and I met when we were children. My father would travel to wherever he was invited to play, and Raoul and I met at Perros-Guirec, up in Brittany. Years later, he came to hear me at a recital when I was in conservatory here in Barcelona, and we eloped within months."
"I understand his brother, the Comte de Chagny, did not approve?"
"Philippe cut Raoul off and refused me admittance to the family estate; Raoul was furious with him. So I went to work at the Victoria, and we took a quiet little flat here in Barcelona, but then the military revolt against the Republic started. Raoul went to Albacete in October of 1936 to help with the International Brigades, and I came here to live with Mamá again. We're both good Catholics, Father. We just believe that Mola and Franco were traitors to Spain…we believed in the Republic and democracy."
"Shhhh!" said Mamá Valerio, looking around, though nobody was eavesdropping. Paqui had been sent out on a mission to find more coffee.
"I think the windows are well fastened, and nobody can hear her through the door or walls," said the priest, and nodded at Christine encouragingly. "It's terrible that so many conversations these days are in whispers. Please continue."
"Anyway, Raoul had always had sympathies with the Communist party in France. Philippe blamed my influence for Raoul's political views, but I can honestly say he was wrong." The memory of Philippe's words still made her blood run cold. "What's a de Chagny doing even lying with a murderous Red bitch like her? Surely you could come up with something better, and for just a few francs!"
Christine inhaled, bringing her thoughts under control as she continued. "I myself believed in the Republic, in universal suffrage, in education for the poor. When Raoul decided to fight, I was terribly unhappy, but at the same time I was proud of him." She looked down at Erik's ring and sighed. Nobody could tell the wedding band was a different one without looking closely. "I started working at the Victoria at about the time Raoul and I married, and I didn't have a wedding band at the time. We'd eloped, you know, and he'd been cut off financially by his brother. He couldn't afford a wedding ring for me, and he didn't want me to buy one for myself..." How it had injured Raoul's vanity when Christine's income had had to support them both! She more than anyone understood why Raoul had chosen to fight. He had his pride, after all. "So the people at the Victoria thought I was unmarried, and I just let them think that. There were risks to being involved in politics. The workers' militias were at odds with the Stalinists, and there was that terrible fighting in May of 1937, you know. It feels like a betrayal of sorts now, but it's a good thing that they didn't learn I'm married – and who I'm married to. Raoul finally brought me my wedding ring when he came back from the front to visit me in 1938. Whenever people asked, I told them that my husband was away at the war and I didn't know what had become of him, which was true enough. There were so many women in the same situation, just trying to get by. When the fascists arrived in Barcelona, there were purges, and many of the artists who didn't flee the Victoria were arrested. I was lucky to escape that, and still am, Father." She shuddered.
"Do you know where your husband is? Perhaps I could be of some use," Father Efrén said.
Christine lowered her voice even more. "I hear he's alive and working for the Resistance in France. That's all I know. Could you help to find him? To tell him I'm well and I miss him? I keep writing to his brother, and Philippe writes back insisting that he knows nothing and has not seen Raoul. Well, of course he knows nothing, with a brother like his. Can you imagine how the Vichy government would take it if Raoul were to appear at the estate? By now, both the Regime here and the Nazis must want Raoul's head. And I'm a liability, Father! Someone…someone friendly found the record of our marriage."
"Who?" asked Mamá Valerio with a quick grimace of fear.
"Don't worry," Father Efrén interjected, "Many of the civil records were lost or stolen, and the Regime makes it a point not to consult the Republican marriage records. It's a matter of principle with them. I'm the first one to say that they've given many new powers and responsibilities to the Church…or restored the old ones, as many say. Franco likes to call his dictatorship 'National-Catholic.' I never could stand the sight of priests and even bishops giving him that one-armed fascist salute, though." He smiled at the ladies, who did not bother to hide their astonishment at his words. "You have trusted me, and I will trust you in return. It's good to be able to speak openly with someone in this day and age. I keep many secrets, but some of them are my own." His face darkened somewhat at this admission, but he continued. "I admit that I was happy when the military uprising against the Second Republic began. You know how chaotic things were in some corners of the country! And I continued to think that at last there would be order as the National troops gained ground. So many priests and nuns were being killed by communists, anarchists, and simple criminals! But then I was assigned to that prison, where I learned the true nature of the fascists. There were good men like your father there, Christine…and there were young women with small children, too. The babies were pulled away from them as their mothers were pushed against the bloody cemetery wall to be shot. I am so tired of hearing the other priests celebrate the deaths of 'atheists'! Your father was a good man - a Protestant, but a good man, and he did not deserve his fate. As a priest and a Christian I am revolted by so many murders, I cannot approve them – but I was needed to administer extreme unction to the murdered. This I always did between the shooting by the firing squad and the coup de grâce." He passed a hand over his face and cupped his chin in his hand, his elbows on his knees. The weight of his memories seemed heavy on him. "I am grateful to have left that, to have been assigned to my parish," he said, finally. "The church of San José Oriol is being restored, as you know, but we are now celebrating Mass in it anyway."
"I remember," said Christine. "It was burned in 1936. So many churches were burned."
"And San Felipe Neri was bombed by the fascists so badly that only the riddled façade remains," added Mamá rather acidly. "Not to mention what happened to the children at the school there when the basement roof caved in…"
"Please!" Father Efrén lifted a hand and rose from the armchair to leave. "Too many terrible memories. We can only hope things will get better. Christine, I will try to make discreet inquiries regarding the exact whereabouts of your husband. I can't promise anything, though."
"I'm grateful for anything you can do, Father."
"And do come by to Mass sometime at San José Oriol, if you can. Both of you."
"We will."
"Senta? Me? You must be joking!" Christine looked at the music that Erik had handed her. She looked again in disbelief – It was indeed Senta's ballad from "The Flying Dutchman."
A glance revealed that Erik was smiling at her expression of astonishment. There was something of tenderness about his amusement, she imagined, but then she dismissed the thought. They were in Christine's dressing room, where Erik had arranged for her to take her lessons. She knew that she was not to tell anyone about him and had wondered fleetingly how he could enter a busy theater like the Victoria unseen – until he had seemingly materialized behind her out of thin air.
"Since the Victoria is on a Wagnerian kick, its next opera is to be 'The Flying Dutchman.' You will be a refreshing Senta after Carlotta's disastrous turn as Kundry." Erik winced at the memory but continued. "You, my dear, are that rarity among sopranos – you are a dramatic coloratura, and you can also do justice to Wagner. The city will be at your feet."
"Carlotta will have me arrested and executed at dawn over this," Christine murmured darkly. "And the managers? What about them?"
"I am on…friendly terms with the managers here," said Erik, waving a spidery hand dismissively. "As for Carlotta, you need not worry about her. There were complaints from the Germans in the audience after 'Parsifal.' They could not bear to hear the language of Goethe mangled in such a way and in such a 'bar-room voice,' as one person characterized it."
"She'll just get a language coach to help her clean up her accent and continue as always. And she has the managers on her side."
"I will not permit that harpy to prevail. Trust in me."
"Do I have a choice?"
"No. And now I have yet another piece for you to practice. This one is for your weekly recital, however." Graceful sleight of hand changed a pear Christine had been eating into more sheet music, but its notes were hand-written. She looked at the lyrics: a poem in Italian. The time signature was 4/4. She sight-read, humming rather than reading the Italian, then stopped abruptly.
"This is the message in Morse code for Gloria's contact! But it's beautiful, Erik! How did you manage to write such a lovely piece of…well…encoded message?" She looked up at him, grinning. Her smile faded as she saw the look in his eyes. He took a bite out of her half-eaten pear, his gaze steady and hot on her.
"You'll have to memorize this and burn it. There's more, of course. Continue reading the music."
Christine obeyed, then looked at Erik. "This is about someone called Manfred Katz? This is in addition to the message Gloria gave me to disseminate."
"Exactly. Manfred Katz is receiving money from refugees, mostly Jewish, who he assists in crossing the border into Spain, a presumably safe country. After collecting the money from them, he informs the Gestapo, which also pays him money. With all the money received, Katz is buying tungsten, which he is selling to the Nazis. He is Jewish himself, but the nature of his betrayal does not appear to bother him." Erik smiled humorlessly, his eyes glittering.
"But…how will I explain how I got this information?" Christine sat at her dressing table and fidgeted with a pouf. Her eyes rose to meet Erik's in the mirror as he stood behind her.
He bent down to her ear level and his breath brushed her skin as he whispered. "You may tell her you are receiving information from a new lover. It's not unheard of, is it? You need something that explains your increased income. Wear this at the next recital." He produced a gaudy ruby necklace and Christine felt its cold weight on her neck as he fastened it. His hands remained lightly on her shoulders as both regarded her reflection in the mirror.
"I don't mean to offend you, but this necklace is not only beautiful – it's also perfectly garish," she finally murmured. She looked pale under the rubies. Red was definitely not her color, she decided.
He smiled and straightened. "Exactly. Just the kind of thing a nouveau riche from the new Regime, Franco's New Spain, would give his mistress. People will focus on the gems and speculate on the identity of your lover…not on you. Did you really think my taste was that execrable?"
"These rubies are not real, of course. It's impossible."
"They are genuine," snapped Erik. "I can well afford a decent subterfuge."
"I'm sorry I offended you. Could we please discuss this information you've given me on Manfred Katz? Gloria didn't give me this information, and there are going to be questions about it."
"You have initiative, which will make you more valuable to the Allies. You have a lover who is…let's say…generous with information, probably with the Regime or possibly a high-ranking Nazi, but you are not certain. Let your friends Gloria and Margarita enjoy a certain amount of intrigue."
