Sorry for the late update! I never seem to be able to make time for updating two stories per week. :-( Thank you very much to everybody who is still hanging in there and reading despite my infrequent updates, and a very special thank you to my lovely reviewers and everybody who has put this story on alert or added it to their favorites. You all make my day!
Anyway, on with the story. This is an important chapter, since we are about to meet a new character, who will play a pivotal role in what is to come. And yeah, I know, you are aware of it, but just to make sure everybody understands, I still do not own anything or anybody, and I probably never will. Sigh!
Chapter 9 – Little angel
Mme. Giry and the two young ladies travelled south. Because of Christine's condition they were making frequent stops so that the journey would not be too exhausting for the young mother-to-be. They had decided to go to Italy, where they hoped to eventually find employment at one of the many smaller opera houses. Italy also appealed to them since they all knew a few phrases of Italian from various operas that had been performed in that language at the Populaire and they were therefore confident that they would be able to make themselves understood.
Due to their leisurely travel speed, Christine was already beginning to show when they finally passed the border and reached what would be their new home country. The ladies decided to stay in Turin, at least until Christine's baby had been born. Mme. Giry and Meg knew that the thought of the baby was what kept Christine going. They therefore wanted to make sure that the young woman could get plenty of rest during the last months of her pregnancy, to avoid anything which could possibly lead to a miscarriage.
Christine was in a strange mood. She was at the same time utterly devastated about having lost Erik and totally enthusiastic at the thought of the tiny human being growing inside her, the token of her and Erik's love. She could sit for hours, a hand on her bulging belly, silently talking to her unborn child, telling her baby what a wonderful person its father was, and what a pity it was that her little angel would never be able to meet him.
"My Erik would love you so much," she murmured to her belly. "He was too good for this world, now he is a true angel. He had no obligations whatsoever to take care of me when he found me weeping for my dead papa in that chapel, all those years ago, but he did. He understood what I was going through and helped me deal with my loss. He showered me with love, he told me all that I know, he..." Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes. "I wish he could be here with us now," she continued softly. "That he could actually be there, when you will finally be born, that he could see you, hold you, that the two of you could meet." She sighed, looking up to the sky. "You will see our child, Angel, won't you?" she sobbed. "You will watch over both of us from above, just as you always watched over me at the Opéra Populaire. You and papa... you will be with us, always. Your love will protect us..."
Xxxx
The three ladies had rented a small house in the suburbs of Turin. As soon as they had settled in, Mme. Giry had contacted a midwife that had been recommended to her by their landlady and asked her to have a look at Christine. "It is such a tragic situation," she explained to the midwife. "My foster-daughter was only married for a few weeks, when her husband died in an accident. She was very much in love with him, and to lose him in such a way..." She paused for emphasis. "We were almost fearing for her sanity, and if she had not found out at about the same time that she was with child,..."
The midwife nodded in understanding. She was an elderly woman and had delivered hundreds of babies in her life. She had met a few widows before, who had given birth a few months after their husband's death, and she knew about the problems involved. After examining Christine, she took Mme. Giry aside. "Physically Madame Almgren is fine," she told her. "Everything is as it should be, and I do not foresee any problems during the remainder of her pregnancy or during delivery of the baby. What I do fear, though, is that she might be too emotionally attached to her child, that she will suffocate the little one with her love for both, the child and its father. She might be overprotective, constantly afraid of losing the child as well. Should that happen, you must make sure she understands that such an approach could harm the development of her offspring."
Mme. Giry sighed. "I understand what you mean," she told the midwife, "and I will try to help her not to make that particular mistake. It is just... she loved Erik so much, and they had so little time together. She now sees the child as his final legacy..." She smiled. "But I am sure she will listen to reason when she realizes that it's not in the baby's best interest if she becomes too clingy."
Mme. Giry hesitated for a moment, before asking, "is that your only concern for the infant? You do not expect any … ill effects caused by the emotional shock the young mother went through at the early stages of her pregnancy?" What she was concerned about was that the child might have inherited Erik's face, but she did not want to directly ask about that possibility and to disclose the fact that the baby's father had been heavily disfigured.
The midwife shook her head. "No, I don't expect any problems. It is true, that sometimes such a situation can cause serious problems, but in most cases they lead to a miscarriage. After examining Mme. Almgren I can assure you, though, that everything is normal and that I have no reason to assume that the baby or Mme. Almgren have suffered any ill effects."
Mme. Giry smiled relieved. Even though she was convinced that the baby would be well loved by all three of them, even if he or she did indeed inherit Erik's face, for the child's sake she hoped it would not be cursed with its father's fate.
Xxxx
The months passed quickly. Meg had been able to find employment in the corps de ballet at the opera house in town, while Mme. Giry was working as a seamstress, a job which allowed her to stay at home with Christine most of the time.
Christine was sewing a lot, too, and knitting as well. She was preparing a wardrobe for her baby. She had never had much interest in such womanly chores, but now she began to relish them. It meant the world to her that she could already start caring for the child, even though it was still a few weeks till the little one would be born.
"Erik was always impeccably dressed," she told Mme. Giry one day. "He would want the same for our child."
Mme. Giry smiled. She had a feeling that Erik, if he were still alive, would make sure that both, Christine and their child, had the most flattering and becoming outfits. But knowing about his own miserable childhood, she was also sure that what would matter most to him would be that the child was loved.
"You will be a great mother," she simply told Christine. "That's what will mean most to Erik, when he watches you and his child from above."
Xxxx
On a rainy, cold day in November, Christine went into labor. Meg went for the midwife immediately. At her arrival the latter found her patient to be rather crestfallen. "How can I go through with this without my Angel," Christine sobbed, scared to death by the pain the first, still rather mild contractions had caused her. She wished Erik were here and could calm her with his melodious voice, hold her hand and comfort her during the whole process. Having to go through this alone was hell.
Christine grabbed Mme. Giry's hand. "What if I do not survive this?" she rasped. "For I don't think I can hold on much longer. What about my baby? What will become of my little angel?"
"Sh," Mme. Giry tried to calm her. "Relax. You will survive this. You will be able to take care of the baby and be there for your little one. I know the pain is almost unbearable. I thought I would die as well, when I had Meg. That's not unusual. Just concentrate on the joy of finally being able to hold your baby. Focus on that. The baby needs you to be strong. Erik would want you to be strong."
Christine nodded and tried to relax, but when a few minutes later another contraction hit, her fear returned. It did not help that it took hours before she was sufficiently dilated and the midwife could finally tell her to push.
Things went fast then, and two contractions later, Christine finally heard the cries of her newborn child. The midwife smiled at her. "It is a boy," she told Christine. "You have a beautiful little son."
"A boy," Christine repeated. She had known it all along. She had never really considered the possibility that her child could be a girl. In her mind her little angel was the spitting image of his father – except for the disfigurement. "Can I see him?" she asked weakly.
"In a moment," the midwife announced. "Just let me clean up the little fellow a bit."
A few minutes later, Christine finally held her son. She thought her heart would burst with love when she looked at his tiny face, still red and wrinkled from the birth process. Oh, how cute he was! How utterly adorable! To her immense joy she noticed that the baby seemed to have inherited Erik's build. Her boy was rather tall and skinny, and when he opened his eyes a bit, she felt like gazing into her Angel's expressive orbs.
"Angel," she whispered, in awe. "Can you see him? Can you see our adorable, perfect little boy? This is the most precious gift you ever gave me, and the only thing which makes me sad, is that you cannot be with us. A child needs a family, two parents. I will do my best to make sure he does not miss anything, I will have to love him twice as much to make up for the love you would shower him with if you could be with us."
Mme. Giry, who had stayed with Christine for the whole time, smiled at her. "Do you have decided on a name for your son?" she asked softly.
Christine nodded. "Erik," she said, then elaborated, "Erik Gustav."
Mme. Giry's smile broadened. "They would be honored by your choice and I am sure they are both watching over you now," she said softly, "their love is with you and the boy."
The midwife then explained to Christine how she could feed the baby and promised to stop by the next day and check on her and the infant. "Just to be on the safe side," she reassured Christine, "you should both be fine!"
She then took her leave. When Mme. Giry showed her out, the midwife finally voiced a concern. "Mme. Almgren is fine," she told Antoinette. "And I think the boy is, too, it's just... he is of average weight for a newborn baby, but he is taller than average, thus skinnier than I would like. It's probably nothing, babies vary in size and weight, it's just a bit unusual..."
Mme. Giry let out a breath she had not been aware she had been holding. She had expected some terrible information on the baby's health or rather lack thereof. The midwife's words did not make her overly concerned, though, since she had the perfect explanation for the little boy's long limbs. "I think that means he comes after his father," she informed the midwife. "Monsieur Almgren was rather tall and skinny. It seems the boy inherited his figure."
Xxxx
Once little Erik had been fed and dressed, Mme. Giry insisted for Christine to rest. Christine could not sleep, though. She was too busy watching her son sleep. Mme. Giry had put him in the cradle they had prepared for him and had pushed it right next to Christine's bed, so that the young mother could see her boy.
"He is the most beautiful child in the whole world," Christine thought. "How sad that he has to grow up without his father! I know from personal experience what it means to be fatherless, but I had my dear papa for a few years at least, my little angel will never be able to meet his." And she promised that she would tell little Erik everything about his father. "He was a genius," she whispered, "he had the most beautiful voice, and he loved me so much. I hurt him badly once, but at least I could convince him that I regretted my previous actions, that I did love him, before he..." She was sobbing now. "I still love him," she told her son, "I always will. There will never be another man in my life. I am his for all eternity. You will never have a stepfather."
Xxxx
At around the same time, the boy's father was finally sufficiently recovered that he could think about travelling. After Nadir had told him in April that Christine and the Girys had left Paris, Erik had ordered Nadir to start investigations at once, to try and find out where the ladies had gone. "Even if we cannot follow them immediately, we can contact them, once we know where they have gone," he had told his friend. "The sooner they know that I am alive and will join them shortly, wherever they are, the better. I do not want them to mourn me any longer. Just imagine how heartbroken they both must be!"
Nadir had had to admit that Erik's words made sense and had used every channel of information he had access to, to try and find out the Girys' new place of residence, but it seemed as if the three ladies had dissolved into thin air, vanished completely from the face of the Earth. There did not seem to be any records anywhere about their journey. Nobody named either Giry or Daaé had rented a room at any inn anywhere in France, or bought a train ticket, boat ticket, rented a carriage, nothing. And at the time Nadir started to make his inquiries, Christine and the Girys had already been gone for almost two weeks, and even if somebody vaguely remembered having seen three ladies that would fit their description, they could not say anymore where these ladies had gone. It became obvious very soon that it would be difficult, if not downright impossible to find the women again.
When Erik learned these news he threw a fit and ranted for hours, thus overexerting his still weak body, which lead to a relapse. Thanks to Nadir and Darius he survived the returning fever again, but it was as if all energy had left him, as if life had no meaning for him anymore. Now that he had very little hope left of ever being reunited with Christine again, Erik had no will to live. He was almost mad at his two friends for having saved his life again instead of having let him die. Nadir and Darius had to work hard to make him understand that they cared for him deeply and that even though he had lost two very important people, he was not alone. Still, Erik became rather depressed and had very little interest in anything. He never once sought solace in music, he did not touch a book, and when Nadir finally persuaded him to try a game of chess, he could not concentrate on the game at all and lost after just a few moves.
Erik's melancholy state of mind was not the only problem, though. During the attack of the mob, several of his ribs had been broken. One of them had punctured Erik's lung. The lung had healed, but it soon became obvious that due to the scar tissue, the lung's immune system had suffered and Erik was now much more susceptible to pneumonia. Thus, when the days grew shorter and winter was about to set in in Paris, Nadir decided that it would be best to take his recovering patient elsewhere.
"You need a milder climate," he told Erik, "in order for your lung to heal properly, not to mention that a change of scenery would do you a lot of good. We are therefore leaving Paris. You cannot stay here anyway, even though the Phantom has officially been declared dead. It's not safe for you here, and now that you are a bit stronger again, you cannot remain confined to an apartment indefinitely. You will see, the world will look less bleak, once you have left this city behind with all its memories, once we have reached a place where nobody knows us, where you can walk around freely."
Erik shrugged. He did not really care. After all, what difference did it make, where he lead his miserable existence? He could wallow in misery and self-pity and mourn his lost love here in Paris just as well as anywhere else. Why should he leave? He had absolutely no desire of leaving Nadir's apartment, of walking around as his friend suggested.
"We are going south," Nadir decided. "How would you like the Provence, or the Côte d'Azur? The sun is warmer there, even at this time of the year, the climate is mild, I am sure you will love it there! The landscape is beautiful with its gentle slopes, we can even live at the seaside. The whole region is so poetic, I am sure you will find your music again, down there."
Erik barely listened. He did not care, deep down he knew that his music was dead, that all inspiration had left him together with his love, his bride, his muse. The mere thought of ever touching an instrument again, of putting notes to paper, made him ill. But he also did not object, when Nadir packed their things and a few days later they left Paris in a carriage, heading south.
