Chapter Ten
Emergence
The morning had not yet broken in the world above when Christine felt movement in the bed beside her. Roused from her light slumber, she felt Erik's long sinewy form slink under the bedclothes and nestle down close to her. His frigid hands touched her arm as he settled himself in a tight huddle.
"You're frozen," Christine remarked thickly. Erik shivered.
Christine closed her eyes again. Lying on her back, she folded her arms to keep warm against the iceblock beside her. Idly she wondered what time it could be. It must be only hours before she would be set at liberty and the thought made her feel a strange mixture of joy and foreboding.
It was difficult to sleep again with Erik breathing noisily, his face sheltered behind his hands. Christine felt irritated that her last night had been disturbed. She tried to conjure up peaceful thoughts to lull herself back into restful sleep. But hours seemed to pass wherein her mind drifted between consciousness and dreamy half-awareness. All the while her husband snored.
Eventually Erik stirred. Christine could tell he was awake because his snoring had ceased.
"Is it morning?" she sighed, tossing over on her side to face her bed-mate, cradling her head on her bent arm. She looked at the curled up figure in front of her, seeing only his dim outlines in the blackness of the room. His face was concealed behind his hands.
Christine blinked a few times and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "I told you you'd be more comfortable in the bed," she said. "You should get rid of that silly coffin, you know. It's a morbid, wretched thing."
Her companion moved his hands from his face, put his palms together and used them as a pillow. His eyes glistened in the darkness, watching the young woman's face.
Christine sighed again. "Are you warm?" she asked, suspecting that Erik was not covered by the bedclothes.
He did not reply at once but went on regarding her wistfully. "It doesn't signify," he said finally in a smooth, low voice. It was a voice that sent a ripple down Christine's spine, at once pleasurable and chilling. "The person you care for has died. There is only me now."
Something in that tone made Christine clench her teeth. She peered at the man lying beside her, facing her. It was difficult to make out his features in the darkness. Two points of light were his eyes and cavernous shadows indicated his sunken cheeks and absent nose. His mouth was but a faint, crooked line.
"You said you would take me to your friend today," Christine reminded him gently. "Should we be getting up now?"
Her companion blinked, extinguishing the glinting lights momentarily. "Erik would have promised you anything, Christine," he purred smoothly. "Anything at all to make you stay with him one more day. But I am not like that," he went on while Christine's eyes grew larger with alarm. "I make no promises that I will not keep. And so, yes Christine," he concluded calmly, "it is time for us both to rise."
"We are going then?" Christine confirmed, feeling shaken.
"Of course," her husband told her matter-of-factly, not moving from his reclining place. "Of course we are going. Why would you doubt it?"
"I don't know," Christine weakly replied. "I suppose I don't always know what to expect from you, Erik."
His eyes flashed. "Erik is dead, Christine!" he told her firmly. "Your husband is dead! Now you can be a widow and be happy!" He sat up, raising himself on one arm. "Get up. It is time to go now."
The next hour passed very quickly, almost as a dream. Christine moved through each minute that her little watch ticked off hardly knowing how. Together she and her companion breakfasted and together they set off for the world above. Christine carried a little bag with her which Erik had filled with various articles he apparently supposed would be meaningful to her; the hairbrush he had bought for her, the lace handkerchief she had never used, a pair of slippers embroidered with purple silk. The slippers Christine had liked very much, but most of the other things were merely reminders of the occasions Erik had successfully performed his husbandly duty, for they were presents he had bought her by way of gratitude.
It was a long and tedious journey up the five levels to the surface, Christine following her guide closely so that she would not lose his black figure in the benighted cellars. Erik held a lantern aloft which shed a halo of light about them, and in its flickering circle Christine sometimes spied rats scurrying along the passages close to the stone walls. The first few times she jumped and faltered in her step but after a time the sight became so common she no longer heeded it. Her attention was fixed securely on the man leading her to the blessed surface, to freedom and life.
Eventually, they found themselves in a narrow corridor with walls lined with timber. The smell of cedar mixed with the musty smell of old books, of centuries of dust and mildew. Their footsteps sounded faintly on the wooden boards beneath their feet and soon Erik stopped. Christine stopped also.
"Do you know where you are, Christine?" Erik asked, looking over his shoulder at her. He was wearing his black mask, just as he had been on the night she had first caught glimpse of this terrible nightmarish man. His hand, holding the lantern high, was gloved in black leather. Christine looked at him quizzically.
"How should I know that?" she said, though a suspicion had entered her mind.
Erik chuckled deeply. It was a long time since Christine had heard that chuckle. She remembered it from long ago, from the days when she had known Erik only as the 'voice' in her dressing-room. "You don't remember our first meeting then?" he teased her. "You, who were so overcome by my majesty that you fainted in your Angel's arms?"
Christine bristled. "I did not faint!" she corrected him, to which Erik only chuckled again. "You held a chloroformed handkerchief to my face! You drugged me! Don't think I don't remember!"
She heard the enigmatic man sigh. "Yes, and in your case I did not hold it long enough."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Christine snapped.
Erik turned away and reached up to tinker with some sort of mechanism high on the wall in front of him. He did not answer the angry girl behind him but in another moment, Christine felt a cool breeze brush her cheek and peering past her slim companion saw that a room had opened up in front of them. Erik's lantern shed its light upon a small dressing-table covered with vases, picture frames and pots and brushes of all kinds. Christine recognized it as her own.
"My dressing-room!" she gasped, pushing past Erik. He let her displace him and then followed her into the room. With only the lantern's light to shed its warm glow upon the little room, Christine turned slowly in a circle, taking in every detail, every chair, every gas fitting. Her eyes fell upon an opened bottle of perfume on the dressing-table. "Nothing has changed," she murmured faintly with a sense of awe. "They have kept it just as it was that night."
"Your people are waiting for you," was all that Erik said, showing the way to the door. "Come now."
It was night. Or at least that was what Christine supposed when Erik opened the door into the main passage and led her along it towards the stairs. The theatre was deserted and quiet. Almost noiselessly they flitted down the spiral staircase which led to one of the back doors, through which the artists customarily exited the building. When they emerged onto the street, Christine saw that the first light of dawn was beginning to trace the outlines of the city.
A hansom cab awaited them at the gate. Erik motioned Christine inside and then climbed in after her. The cab set off at a trotting pace.
Clutching her little bag on her lap, Christine watched the shopfronts pass them by and the occasional lined and weary face belonging to a beggar or street vendor setting up for the day. They jaunted their way down the Place de l'Opera to the clopping of the horse's hooves and jingling harness until their journey brought them to the wide smooth avenue of the Rue de Rivoli.
Drawing up to the pavement under the shadow of a great apartment building, the cab stopped and Erik had Christine disembark first. Once standing on the street, Erik paid the cabman and led Christine under the colonnade that enclosed the pavement and into the building. It was now almost daylight.
Erik led the way up a flight of narrow stairs. On the third landing he stopped and knocked heavily on a plain wooden door with a brass handle and a letter slot cut into its middle at about hip level. Christine could smell an odd eastern fragrance which, though not unpleasant, made her uneasy.
Light footsteps approached the door from the other side. And then with a slight squeak, the letter slot was pushed open by thick fingers. A deep brown eye with thick lashes peered out through the gap.
The fingers disappeared and let the slot drop closed. There was the sound of a key turning in the lock, and finally the door opened, revealing a face that Christine knew. It was the dark-skinned Persian man who had tried to rescue her with Raoul. The exhausted woman sighed inwardly with relief as the tall, bulky man ushered her inside with Erik following behind.
The sweet-smelling fragrance became stronger as Christine was shown down the hall and into a quaint little parlour. The Persian man, with shaven head, helped her to a comfortable chair by the fire and immediately set about pouring coffee from a strange sort of teapot while Erik stood looking on, sullen and silent. Christine hardly cared what Erik was feeling. She was too grateful to be free of her dungeon and safe at last in the hands of a man she knew could be trusted. So relieved was she that she allowed herself to settle back into her armchair and close her eyes.
"You kept your word I see," the man said to Erik as he filled the third cup. Christine opened her eyes at the sound of his voice and saw that the cups he was using were tiny.
Erik grunted. The Persian man picked up a cup and brought it to Christine. "Drink it with this," he suggested, offering her a small plate which bore a lump of sugar. Christine picked up the sugar lump and was about to drop it into the cup. "No, no!" her host hastened to stop her. "Put it into your mouth."
With some wonderment, Christine did so. "Now drink," the Persian man directed. And so, she did. She found it was very pleasant to soften the sugar lump with the strong bitter brew. Seeing that she liked it, the Persian man smiled contentedly and moved away to serve Erik. But Erik had already helped himself and was crossing to a straight-backed chair a few steps away from Christine.
"You realise what you have done, of course?" the Persian said, seemingly to Erik, as he took up his own cup and then popped a lump of sugar into his mouth. Sitting down in a large armchair facing them both, he crossed one leg over the other and let his gaze fall upon Christine who was huddled over her cup much like a beggar over a bowl of stew. The Persian turned his sights back to Erik who only glared at him.
"You were ever an interfering booby," Erik sneered, holding his cup between his gloved hands. He had not tasted it yet, for his mask was a hindrance to his lips. "I told you before you had better stay out of my affairs, but like a fool you never listened! Now take the consequences! That is enough of you!"
The Persian drew slowly on his coffee, lowered the cup and chuckled through closed lips. Sensing an approaching argument, Christine watched the two men furtively, feeling her muscles tense. Secretly she began calculating whether she would be able to run past them and out the door should it become necessary.
"How much did you tell her?" the Persian then asked, raising a black eyebrow at his skinny antagonist. Erik looked straight back at him, his yellow eyes piercing the Persian's supercilious stare.
"Never what you think!" he snarled dangerously, and then put a hand to his mask. "And yet this was not enough to shock her, as it does you!" at which he tore the mask from his face and cast it on the floor. Quickly the Persian averted his eyes and glowered at the black mask lying uselessly in front of his feet. Erik laughed.
"It's surprisingly easier to partake of food with guests when one isn't hampered by that thing," Erik pronounced after draining his coffee cup with one gulp. "My dear little wife understood that, didn't you darling?" he demanded of Christine with a heightened tone of excitement in his voice. Agitated and afraid, Christine only gazed at him mutely. Erik looked like a terrible gargoyle with a gaping mouth showing all of his crooked teeth.
"Stop humiliating yourself," the Persian muttered darkly.
"Oh, it's too late for that, Daroga!" Erik corrected him with a gleeful smile. "We're all humiliated now, you more than most! And you'll have to bear it, like your faithful old Trapdoor Lover once did for you! This is what your people call recompense, you know."
Christine seized the opportunity to try to calm matters. "You haven't even introduced us properly," she told her husband in her best polite voice. "Won't you tell me your friend's name, Erik?"
The Persian glanced up quickly, flashed a sideways look at Erik that was not high enough to encompass his deformity, and then blinked a few times before raising his sights to Christine's earnest face. He smiled coolly.
"Erik was never one to remember his manners," he remarked smoothly. "No, my name does not matter. But you may call me Nadir."
Erik snorted. "Hmph! As well you introduce yourself, great hypocritical booby!" Nadir ignored him.
"Well, I'm very pleased to meet you properly at last," Christine said with a gracious nod that disguised her anxiety. "I know what you tried to do for me," she said, glancing uneasily at Erik who was now slouching belligerently in his chair, arms folded across his chest. "I am glad to see that you came to no harm."
"And I am only sorry that I could not prevent this terrible calamity from befalling you, Mademoiselle Daae," the Persian uttered in silken accents. "And the boy – I should say, the Vicomte – a great tragedy! You have borne this with great fortitude, no doubt by a superior faith in the Almighty, peace be on Him."
Unsure of how to respond, Christine lowered her face, blushing violently.
"Well," Erik announced, standing up suddenly, "you have your work to do, and so I'll trouble you no more." Stooping down, he picked up his mask from the floor and fixed it firmly to his face. With a few brusque slaps he dusted off his gloved palms. "Do as you will, Daroga," he said to the Persian shortly, "but cross the Trapdoor Lover in any way, as we agreed upon, and you won't have any more to worry about from anyone – ever!" And a moment later, he was gone, out of the parlour and through the passage, slamming the door behind him.
Christine sat, stunned, looking at the chair that Erik had quitted. His empty coffee cup was still sitting on a little carved table beside it.
She felt her heart quiver.
"We must take you home," the Persian's voice cut across her thoughts. And when Christine met his gaze, he smiled, showing a row of tobacco-stained teeth, and eyes that glinted like those of a fox.