Part VII: Christine
The whole evening had been a disaster, to say the least, but after three days of marriage, Christine was starting to think that perhaps that was just the way things worked five cellar below the ground.
The Persian man, who her husband called "Daroga" for a reason unknown to her, had left a little while after he had finished his cup of tea, probably as suffocated with the strange atmosphere as she herself was. He had been nice; strange but nice with that peaceful expression on his older face. However, Christine couldn't avoid feeling something might be off, and not only with the man himself, but with his whole "friendship" with Erik as well. A part of her did not truly believe the story of the drowning and the hero, but M. Khan had confirmed the story, and there seemed to be no other logical explanation, unless...-
"Is he not your friend, Erik? Why did you urge him to go that much?" Christine, trying to sound casual rather than disappointed, asked once the couple was once again alone. The truth was that, more than the thousand flowers and the hundred gifts, Christine had loved M. Khan's visit: seeing a normal man in this normal house and having a normal chat in which neither of the participants referred to themselves in third person had helped her calm her nerves. She could nearly forget that her husband wore a strange mask and that they lived underground, if it had not been for his constant comments to the man of his inopportunity.
"He is no friend of Erik's, but he is the closest thing Erik has to one," Erik answered, with no trace of sadness or regret on his voice.
At least in that sense Christine could say that she truly understood her husband: she had no friends either. Sure, she talked once in a while with the chorus members, gave some candies to the little ballet girls, or had a nice cup of tea with the older residents of the Opera, but that was as far as it went. Since her father's departure, Christine had found no strength nor desire to truly mingle with the masses, and her interactions with others were reduced to formalities and little conversations once in a while.
The Voice had changed that, she supposed. He had been the first person that Christine had honestly and wholeheartedly considered a friend since her father, but now that things were... different, she supposed she was once again friendless if she did not count Mamma Valérius, who in truth was closer to a mother than to a friend.
"Then why did you want him gone with such urgency?" Christine insisted. After the conversation with M. Khan had drifted away to a more comfortable topic, she had truly began to enjoy the companionship, and had done her best to hide the disappointment when he had refused a second cup of tea. Playing hostess had made her feel like a normal wife, even if she had felt the eyes of her guest looking for lies behind her every word. She knew he had seen the marks on her arm, too, and had been inmensely thankful when he had politely ignored them.
"I told you already, Christine: this is our honeymoon, and Erik is selfish," he answered, with a touch of annoyance in his voice, "The Daroga is a nosy, persistent old man; he'll come again."
Christine nodded and said no more, and turned her sight to the flames in the fireplace. In three days, the light of the fire had been the closest thing she's had to sunlight.
"Erik," she called, "how long is our honeymoon going to last?"
"Do you wish to finish your breakfast, my dear?" Erik replied instead, as if her question had not been heard. She persisted.
"Erik, I would rather-"
"The food must be cold already and it's almost-" he looked at his pocket watch, "almost eleven in the morning. Would you wish to eat your breakfast still, or do you want to have lunch instead?"
"You are not answering my question," she said, with her arms crossing in dislike. She didn't appreciate his sudden and unjustified change of topic.
"Neither are you answering mine," he replied, emotionless.
She sighed. "No, Erik, I do not want to finish the breakfast. I would rather wait for lunch. Now, you answer my question."
"Two weeks."
Christine gasped lightly.
"Two weeks? Erik, that is such a long time!" Christine exclaimed. She could not spend two whole weeks without sunlight, without people, without church on Sundays or without her Mamma. She could not. She needed the scenary, the lights, the muffled gossips and senseless little giggles of the ballerinas. She needed to give Ceasar a sugar cube and brush his hair. She needed to hear the noise of the living and not the eternal quietness of the death.
She needed air.
"Do you not wish to spend this time with your loving husband? Do you wish to leave him already?" He asked, and Christine could recognize the borderline desperation in his voice.
The memory of her intimidating husband gripping her skirts and trembling like a moribund gasping for a last breath crossed her mind for a second, and the thought made the thin hairs on her forearms stand from horror.
It was, after all, an image she felt would always haunt her in her nightmares: she had broken him. He had passed from the happiest man on earth -perhaps even too happy-, to a trembling mess of fright. She had never seen a grown man act so much like a child, and the idea that it had been her the one who had made him react in such a way was maddening.
"It is not that, Erik, it's just..." Christine dragged her sight through the room, avoiding the leather of his mask as much as possible, "I want to see my mamma."
And it was not a lie. Christine loved Madame Valérius more than she loved life itself -and the fact that she had completely thrown away her own for hers was proof enough- but the frail woman was nowhere near her true reason for wanting to leave with such desperation: it was him.
If things had been awkward for Christine before the... incident with the mask, it had been nowhere near the past night and morning. She had been unable to find peace after that, listening to his heart-wreaking cries for hours from behind a locked bathroom door and throught the curtain of her hands and tears before suppressing her fear enough as to be able to simply apologize. And even after they had "fixed" the incident and she had left him once again overflowing with an unnerving happiness, a slight fear of another attack always lurked on her mind -even though a part of her told her that, as long as she did not do something as foolish as trying to rip off his mask again, she would be fine. He had proven to be nothing but a loving, though extremely frail and unstable, husband as long as her hands stood away from his face-, but the feeling was still strong on her, and her already disturbed mind had found just another excuse to want to leave with more desperation.
"Sweet Christine must worry for her mamma," the man said with a voice filled with adoration, "such a feeling that Erik cannot understand."
Christine had no time to find the meaning behind his comment, when he continued:
"You need not to worry, my dear wife: your Mamma has been receiving the best treatments that money can get since the day of our union. Erik takes good care of his mother-in-law. She is... Erik's family now."
She smiled weakly, her own concern not allowing her to hear the silent reverence that had surrounded his last sentences. "I am sure you do, Erik, but I would still like to go see her."
"Wives do not leave their husbands to see their mothers during their honeymoon."
His tone had been devoid of any trace of emotion, and a shiver ran down Christine's back. The ghost memory of his dead hands on her arm burned her skin.
"No, I guess they do not..."
"Then you shall not do it, either," he said with that same voice he had used just the day before when he had scared her out of the kitchen. His voice, her only window to his mind, could be so erratic and unpredictable.
As they sat silently in the room full of decaying flowers, she couldn't help but once again ask herself who was that man sitting with her. He was rich enough to maintain her, himself, and her guardian, yet he lived in a basement. He seemed old enough and yet he had not been married -not that Christine believed that young women were making infinite lines for the chance, but a man with his wealth could easily... afford one-. He was her husband and yet he did not touch her. He was in his own house and yet he did not take off his gloves, his hat, or his mask.
The man was such an oddity, and she had learned that the hard way.
But oh, Christine could forget that and everything else as soon as those deadly thin hands of his touched an instrument: it was as if heaven itself caressed her mind. It was bliss, but also doom. She had lost herself so deeply and senselessly that her body had acted on its own, trying to reach the forbidden fruit. The sound had unearthed her earthly curiosity; normally buried under the layers of fear and rejection, and by the time her feet had touched the ground again, her arm laid between the claws of the beast, and infernal cries pierced the silence of the dead house.
That same curiosity, which now laid buried deeper than before, could have been the end of her, and she knew it. Yet she dared to defy it again:
"M. Khan said you met in Persia..." she started, unsure about to where her attempt at a conversation was going, and even more unsure about the unpredictable reaction of her husband, "Was it... was it nice there?"
He took no time to answer, and she knew he had been analyzing her every heartbeat once again. It was as if the man did not believe she was there at all:
"It was, for a time," he said with his head moving in another direction, and Christine supposed his eyes were fixed on the flames, just like hers. It was easier to speak with each other if both of them pretended not to be with the other, Christine had concluded. "I learned many things."
"That sounds lovely," Christine replied, and took a few minutes of thinking how to continue the conversation, "why did you come to France, then?"
"I was no longer welcomed in Persia," he simply answered, and his thumb mindlessly rubbed his wedding ring. Christine saw the movement through the corner of her eye and remembered how terrible his naked hands looked; how disgusting they felt even through the leather; how her stomach turned at the sight of his dead hands dirtied with the dry blood of his own wounds. She also remembered how those same hands made her spirit soar with the music they made.
"Why not?" She found herself asking; her mouth moving on its own while her mind remained with his covered hands, and her eyes glued to the dancing flames.
Erik took a few moments to answer, and Christine had the feeling that he no longer remained in the room, but rather that his mind had traveled back to those days; to those moments spent on those mystical lands.
"A simple whim of the ones who have it all, but whose greedy hearts still desire more," he answered and, seeming to come back to the present, quickly added, "but do not feel sorry, my dear; I came back with the memories of a lifetime."
"When I was little," Christine said, her tender words filled with adoration slipping out of her mouth before she had the time to think of them, "I used to travel everywhere with my father, because he was a musician. He used to say we would one day travel the whole world, and that there would be no land that I would not have stepped on… but then he fell ill, and we never got to travel again… perhaps, if he had not passed, we would have one day seen Persia, too"
Christine's words hung lightly on the air, as one of the earliest memories of her life appeared before her eyes: her father, sitting on a pile of hay and his face illuminated dimly by the light of their single oil lamp, telling her of the marvelous places they would one visit, and how there would be no place in the whole world that in which her little feet had not danced; no place that their voices had not reached, and no heart that their music had not warmed.
A small smile tinted with sadness for all that could never be appeared on her face, but it quickly disappeared as she came down to earth once more. They –Erik and her, siting on the living room, not Gustave and little Chirstine Daaé in an old barn- had fallen into a complete silence, only broken by the cracking of the dancing fire before them.
And Erik was looking at her. His eyes were no longer on the flames, like hers had, and instead were fixed on her. Christine left out a nervous little laugh, and was about to say something –anything, or perhaps nothing at all- when Erik stood up and walked towards one of the shelves covering each side of the fireplace. He looked just for a second before taking out of its place a great book and going back to his armchair.
"In Persia, the sun shines brighter than anywhere else," he said, and opened his book to an apparently random page before turning some more pages, "natural beauty of every color and shape cover it all; from north to south and from west to east; all until you think there is nothing else."
He raised the book and showed its open pages to her. There, floating in a cloud of color among the whiteness of the pages, stood a mountainous paradise; with its cloudless, bright sky interrupted by nothing but the blinding sun, and under it, the mountains consumed it all.
It was a handmade drawing; so expertly done that Christine could almost feel the dryness in the air around her, even through the blurriness of her defect eyes.
Without thinking, she slid across the sofa and positioned herself closer to Erik's armchair, where the light of the fireplace illuminated more vividly the handmade figures. The trees in the picture seemed to dance with the flames.
"But in the heart of it all, there is Mazandaran," he said before moving the book away from her sight and turning its pages once more, "I lived there for more than 20 years, but in all that time Erik could never love the sun."
On the next page he showed, there was a market. Colorful tents filled the sides of the crowded streets, and under them anything she could imagine was being sold: fruits, vegetables, fishes, jewels, clothes, books and more. Women with beautiful but unknown attires walked across the long street, carrying in large baskets with their purchases. Children played and ran everywhere, brandishing their little wooden swords in the air as they chased one another.
It was so well done that Christine could almost smell the fresh fruits and foreign condiments in the air.
There was, however, something written on the marge of the pages. Christine slid to the end of the couch; as close to Erik's chair as she was able without having to leave the sofa, but was still unable to see clearly the blurry ink.
"It is beautiful," she whispered, feeling her breath being taken away by every line on the painting, "did you make those drawings?"
At the nod of his head, she smiled at him, "it is magnificently well-done. You are an incredibly talented artist."
A red color bloomed on the tip of Erik's ears, and his hands lowered the book to turn the page.
Erik's tales continued for hours; his words accompanied by the image on the book creating a flawless picture in the mind of Christine. They were sweet, the tales; funny, and fantastic and so impossible, leaving the blonde woman with the wish to travel again, like when she was a child and her father and her moved to wherever their hearts decided, with the stars themselves as the ceiling over their heads and music as their eternal companion.
Of course, Erik's tales were mainly half-truths. His time in Persia had been filled with blood and death, but his naïve wife could never know that. So instead of the child losing his hand for trying to steal a piece of bread, the baker gave him the whole piece so the child and his family could eat. Some truths were better to not let her hear.
Christine, absorbed on the image that Erik painted on the canvas of her mind as well as on the pages, hardly noticed when exactly did their conversation stopped being strange and awkward. At some point, she had no longer needed to stop to think how to continue the conversation, and instead questions and anecdotes of her own started to form and come from her naturally. This was a detail that Erik did not miss, and that placed an ugly-looking smile full of love on his horrible face.
"It would turn out, my dear, that it was in fact not a cloth at all; it was a great green turtle stuck on the Sultan's bedchamber," Erik concluded the tale, and Christine's merry giggle, coming as freely as her questions and comments, filled the room. Erik could not avoid joining her, even though he didn't found the tale funny or amusing at all.
And Christine found herself surprised by this: she felt comfortable enough with this man to laugh freely, to tell him of her most embarrassing anecdotes and most precious memories, and yet she did not dare to look at his direction. She felt confident enough to brush the pages of the book resting on his arms, but had to fight back the urge to flinch every time his hand moved.
The situation was nowhere near the perfect fairytale she had always dreamt her marriage would be like as a child, but it was acceptable and undoubtedly better than not being able to speak or feel afraid every time she was on the same room as Erik. It was, she found herself concluding, just like when he was nothing but a Voice.
To this, she could get used to: a life filled with tales and past memories instead of new ones. A life lived from the past instead of the present and future. Yes, she could get used to that, as long as Erik remained in his armchair and she remained in the security of her sofa; as long as she was looking at the flames when they spoke; as long as she kept pretending this was only a nice visit to a friend and not a lifetime routine trapped with the only person who remained in the world of the underground.
-0-
Author's Note: hello! Sorry for how long it took me to write this and how terribly short it is! I usually take 9 pages on Google Docs, and this chapter sadly only took 6 and a half. I'm really, really sorry! Also, School's been killing me (and my writing spirit. I feel as such a terrible writer every time I turn in an essay feeling all proud and ready for an A for my Comp. I class and I end up failing. Again.) .
I was also not satisfied enough with the result, but hey, at the end, our poor little fav couple is (sort of?) making progress! Y'all see next time;) (If I don't end up changing my plans like I did with this one at last minute haha!)
Anyway, leave a review, please3! (I'm in real need of those right now tbh).
